Alfred Russel Wallace 



a short account of the views set forth in the ^' Origin of 

 Species." In this article Wallace makes a definite state- 

 ment as to his views on the evolution of man, which were 

 opposed to those of Darwin. He upholds the view that 

 the brain of man, as well as the organs of speech, the 

 hand and the external form, could not have been evolved 

 by Natural Selection (the ^^ child '' he is supposed to 

 ^' murder "). At p. 391 he writes : ^^ In the brain of the 

 lowest savages and, as far as we know, of the prehistoric 

 races, we have an organ . . . little inferior in size and 

 complexity to that of the highest types. . . . But the 

 mental requirements of the lowest savages, such as the 

 Australians or the Andaman Islanders, are very little 

 above those of many animals. . . . How then was an 

 organ developed far beyond the needs of its possessor ? 

 Natural Selection could only have endowed the savage 

 with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas 

 he actually possesses one but very little inferior to that 

 of the average members of our learned societies." 



This passage is marked in Darwin^ s copy with a triply 

 underlined ^^ No," and with a shower of notes of exclama- 

 tion. It was probably the first occasion on which he realised 

 the extent of this great and striking divergence in opinion 

 between himself and his colleague. He had, however, some 

 indication of it in Wallace's paper on Man in the Anthro- 

 pological RevieWy 1864, referred to in his letter to Wallace 

 of May 28, 1864, and again in that of April 14, 1869. 



Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. March 27, 1869. 



My dear Wallace, — I must send a line to thank you, but 

 this note will require no answer. This very morning after 

 writing I found that ^^ elk " was used for '' moose " in 

 Sweden, but I had been reading lately about elk and moose 

 in North America. 



As you put the case in your letter, which I think differs 

 somewhat from your book, I am inclined to agree, and had 

 thought that a feather could hardly be increased in length 



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