Alfred Russel Wallace 



tend to the modification of the ra<ie into harmony with 

 changed conditions. 



I hope these remarks may be intelligible to you, and that 

 you will be so kind as to let me know what you think of 

 them. 



I have not heard for some time how you are getting on. 

 I hope you are still improving in health, and that you will 

 be able now to get on with your great work, for which 

 so many thousands are looking with interest. — With best 

 wishes, believe me, my dear Darwin, yours very faithfully, 



Alfred K. Wallace. 



Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. July 5, [1866]. 



My dear Wallace, — I have been much interested by your 

 letter, which is as clear as daylight. I fully agree with 

 all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer^s excel- 

 lent expression of *^ the survival of the fittest." This, 

 however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. 

 It is, however, a great objection to this term that it can- 

 not be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that 

 this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually 

 using the words '' Natural Selection.'' 



I formerly thought, probably in an exaggerated degree, 

 that it was a great advantage to bring into connection 

 natural and artificial selection; this indeed led me to 

 use a term in common, and I still think it some advantage. 

 I wish I had received your letter two months ago, for I 

 would have worked in '^ the survival," etc., often in the 

 new edition of the" Origin," which is now almost printed 

 off, and of which I will, of course, send you a- copy. I will 

 use the term in my next book on Domestic Animals, etc., 

 from which, by the way, I plainly see that you expect much 

 too much. The term Natural Selection has now been so 

 largely used abroad and at home that I doubt whether it 



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