Alfred Russel Wallace 



Herbert Spencer to A. K. Wallace 



Queen's Hotel, CUftonville, Margate. Aug. 19, 1894. 



Dear Mr. Wallace, — I cannot at all agree with you re- 

 specting the relative importance of the work you are doing 

 and that which I wanted you to do. Various articles in the 

 papers show that Lord Salisbury's argument is received with 

 triumph, and, unless it is disposed of, it will lead to a public 

 reaction against the doctrine of evolution at large, a far more 

 serious evil than any error which you propose to rectify 

 among biologists. Everybody will look to you for a reply, 

 and if you make no reply it will be understood that Lord 

 Salisbury's objection is valid. As to the non-publication of 

 your letter in the Times, that is absurd, considering that 

 your name and that of Darwin are constantly coupled 

 together.— Truly yours, Herbert Spencer. 



To Prof. Poulton 



Parkstone, Dorset. September 8, 1894. 



My dear Poulton, — I was glad to see your exposure of 

 another American Neo-Lamarckian in Nature.^ It is aston- 

 ishing how utterly illogical they all are ! I was much pleased 

 with your point of the adaptations supposed to be produced 

 by the inorganic environment when they are related to the 

 organic. It is I think new and very forcible. For nearly 

 a month I have been wading through Bateson's book,' and 

 writing a criticism of it, and of Galton, who backs him up 

 with his idea of " organic stability." . . . Neither he nor 

 Galton appears to have any adequate conception of what 

 Natural Selection is, or how impossible it is to escape from 



1 " Vol. L, p. 445, a review of " A Theory of Development and Heredity," 

 by Henry B. Orr. 1893. 



• " Material for the Study of Variation, treated with especial regard to 

 Discontinuity in the Origin of Species." 1894. 



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