Alfred Russel Wallace 



because its effect can be better seen when all lateral objects 

 are hidden — the catalogue does this. A double tube would 

 be better, but that cannot be extemporised so easily. Have 

 you ever tried a stereograph taken with the camera only the 

 distance apart of the eyes ? That must give nature. When 

 the angle is greater the views in the stereoscope show us, not 

 nature, but a perfect reduced model of nature seen nearer 

 the eye. 



It is curious that you should put Turner and the Pre- 

 Kaphaelites as opposed and representing binocular and 

 monocular painting when Turner himself praises up the 

 Pre-Eaphaelites and calls Holman Hunt the greatest living 

 painter ! ! . . . 



Now for Mr. Darwin's book. You quite misunderstand 

 Mr. D.'s statement in the preface and his sentiments. I 

 have, of course, been in correspondence with him since I 

 first sent him my little essay. His conduct has been most 

 liberal and disinterested. I think anyone who reads the 

 Linnean Society papers and his book will see it. I do back 

 him up in his whole round of conclusions and look upon 

 him as the Neicton of Natural History. 



You begin by criticising the title. Now, though I con- 

 sider the title admirable, I believe it is not Mr. Darwin's 

 but the Publisher's, as you are no doubt aware that pub- 

 lishers will have a taking title, and authors must and do 

 give way to them. Mr. D. gave me a different title before 

 the book came out. Again, you misquote and misunder- 

 stand Huxley, who is a complete convert. Prof. Asa 

 Gray and Dr. Hooker, the two first botanists of Europe 

 and America, are converts. And Lyell, the first geologist 

 living, who has all his life written against such conclusions 

 as Darwin arrives at, is a convert and is about to declare 

 or already has declared his conversion — a noble and almost 

 unique example of a man yielding to conviction on a subject 



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