Alfred Russel Wallace 



cases are in appearance so wonderful, I do not know that 

 they are really more so than every female in the world pro- 

 ducing distinct male and female offspring. 



I am heartily glad that you mean to go on preparing your 

 Journal. — Believe me yours very sincerely, 



Ch. Darwin. 



Hurstpier point, Sicssex. July 2, 1866. 



My dear Darwin, — I have been so repeatedly struck by 

 the utter inability of numbers of intelligent persons to see 

 clearly, or at all, the self-acting and necessary effects of 

 Natural Selection, that I am led to conclude that the term 

 itself, and your mode of illustrating it, however clear and 

 beautiful to many of us, are yet not the best adapted to 

 impress it on the general naturalist public. The two last 

 cases of this misunderstanding are (1) the article on ^* Dar- 

 win and his Teachings '^ in the last Quarterly Journal of 

 Sciejicc^ which, though very well written and on the whole 

 appreciative, yet concludes with a charge of something like 

 blindness, in your not seeing that Natural Selection re- 

 quires the constant watching of an intelligent ^^ chooser," 

 like man's selection to which jou so often compare it; and 

 (2) in Janet's recent work on the ^^ Materialism of the 

 Present Day," reviewed in last Saturday's Reader^ by an 

 extra€t from which I see that he considers your weak point 

 to be that you do not see that ^' thought and direction are 

 essential to the action of Natural Selection." The same 

 objection has been made a score of times by your chief 

 opponents, and I have heard it as often stated myself in 

 conversation. Now, I think this arises almost entirely 

 from your choice of the term Natural Selection, and so 

 constantly comparing it in its effects to man's selection, 

 and also to your so frequently personifying nature as 

 ** selecting," as ^* preferring," as ^^ seeking only the good 



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