Alfred Russel Wallace 



Down, Bromley, Kent, 8.E. April 14, 1869. 



My dear Wallace, — I have been wonderfully interested 

 by your article/ and I should think Lyell will be much 

 gratified by it. I declare if I had been editor and had the 

 power of directing you I should have selected for discussion 

 the very points which you have chosen. I have often said 

 to younger geologists (for I began in the year 1830) that they 

 did not know what a revolution Lyell had effected ; neverthe- 

 less, your extracts from Cuvier have quite astonished me. 



Though not able really to judge, I am inclined to put 

 more confidence in Oroll than you seem to do; but I have 

 been much struck by many of your remarks on degradation. 



Thomson's views of the recent age of the world have been 

 for some time one of my sorest troubles, and so I have been 

 glad to read what you say. Your exposition of Natural 

 Selection seems to me inimitably good; there never lived a 

 better expounder than you. 



I was also much pleased at your discussing the difference 

 between our views and Lamarck's. One sometimes sees the 

 odious expression, '' Justice to myself compels me to say, 

 etc.," but you are the only man I ever heard of who per- 

 sistently does himself an injustice and never demands justice. 

 Indeed, you ought in the review to have alluded to your paper 

 in the Linnean Journal^ and I feel sure all our friends will 

 agree in this, but you cannot ^^ Burke " yourself, however 

 much you may try, as may be seen in half the articles which 

 appear. 



I was asked but the other day by a German professor for 

 your paper, which I sent him. Altogether, I look at your 

 article as appearing in the Quarterly as an immense triumph 

 for our cause. I presume that your remarks on Man are 

 those to which you alluded in your note. 



1 In the Quarterly Review, April, 1869. 

 242 



