MEMOIR. . Ixxxiii 
the anterior legs, on which his contemporaries were founding a really natural 
arrangement of the Diurnal Lepidoptera. In a similar way he set his face 
against the teachings of geographical distribution and the formation of 
varieties and races under the influence of local conditions. His generally 
accurate delineation of the nervures arose, not from an appreciation of their 
real scientific importance, but from their relations to the colours and markings 
in figuring the species.’’ 
This description—of which examples are still not infrequent— 
exactly defines the limitations from which Bates had escaped before 
he sailed for the Amazons. The acuteness of his eye for details 
and structural differences was remarkable ; not less remarkable was 
his insight into fundamental resemblances and differences, which 
placed him in the foremost rank of naturalists to whom form is 
subordinate to function. His bent of mind and continuous inquiry 
into significances prepared him to accept without qualification the 
Origin of Species. In fact, that book gave expression to convic- 
tions which had been slowly ripening within him during his long 
sojourn in the Amazon forests. He was among those whom Grant 
Allen aptly describes as “ Darwinians before Darwin.” While 
Owen, Lyell, and Asa Gray accepted the new doctrine, but with 
reservations ; while Agassiz, Murray, J. E. Gray, and Harvey 
would none of it; while Adam Sedgwick wrote a long letter of 
protest to Darwin, couched in loving terms, and ending with the 
hope that they would “meet in heaven”;* while Henslow and 
Pictet walked one mile with him, but refused to go twain,t Bates 
was with Hooker, Huxley, and Lubbock as immediate adherents. 
He did not share the surprise felt by many when his old fellow- 
traveller Wallace refused to apply the theory, the honour of 
formulating which he shares with Darwin, to man in his ‘out 
ensemble, because he knew how prone Wallace had shown himself 
to become entangled in the meshes of the bastard science of 
spiritualism and its kin.t{ When the collected papers entitled 
Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection appeared, Bates 
wrote to Darwin as follows :— 
‘¢15, WHITEHALL PLACE, S.W., day 20¢h, 1870. 
‘‘T have been having some conversation with the editor of the Academy 
about Mr. Wallace's last book, and the appearance of backsliding from the 
* Cf. Darwin's Live and Letters, ii. 250. 
t lbid., ch. v., ‘On the Reception of the Origin of Species,” by Prof. Huxley. 
t See Mr. Wallace’s article on ‘‘ Spiritualism” in Chambers’ Encyclop., vol. ix., 189 
edition. 
