Alfred Russel Wallace 



I should myself have looked at them as equally wild and 

 uncalled for. I shall look with extreme interest for what 

 you are writing on Man, and shall give full weight to any 

 explanations you can give of his probable origin. My 

 opinions on the subject have been modij&ed solely by the 

 consideration of a series of remarkable phenomena, physical 

 and mental, which I have now had every opportunity of fully 

 testing, and which demonstrate the existence of forces and 

 influences not yet recognised by science. This will, I know, 

 seem to you like some mental hallucination, but as I can 

 assure you from personal communication with them, that 

 Robert Chambers, Dr. Norris of Birmingham, the well- 

 known physiologist, and C. F. Varley, the well-known elec- 

 trician, who have all investigated the subject for years, agree 

 with me both as to the facts and as to the main inferences to 

 be drawn from them, I am in hopes that you will suspend 

 your judgment for a time till we exhibit some corroborative 

 symptoms of insanity. 



In the meantime I can console you by the assurance that 

 I don't agree with the Q, J, of Science about bamboo, and 

 that I see no cause to modify any of my opinions expressed 

 in my article on the ^^ Reign of Law.'' — Believe me yours 

 very faithfully, Alfred R. Wallace. 



9 St. Mark's Crescent, N.W. June 23, 1869. 



Dear Darwin, — Thank you very much for the copy of 

 your fifth edition of the ^' Origin.'' I have not yet read 

 all the additions, but those I have looked at seem very in- 

 teresting, though somewhat brief, but I suppose you are 

 afraid of its great and rapid growth. 



A difficult sexual character seems to me the plumules 

 or battledore scales on the wings of certain families and 

 genera of butterflies, almost invariably changing in form 

 with the species and genera in proportion to other changes, 



244 



