Alfred Russel Wallace 



to face it. Bastian, I suppose, believed that he had bridged 

 the gulf between lifeless and living matter. And here is a 

 man, of whom I know nothing, who has apparently got the 

 whole thing cut and dried. — Yours sincerely, 



W. T. Thiselton-Dyer. 



To Prof. Poulton 

 Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. May 28, 1912. 



My dear Poulton, — Thanks for your paper on Darwin 

 and Bergson.^ I have read nothing of Bergson's, and 

 although he evidently has much in common with my own 

 views, yet all vague ideas — like '' an internal development 

 force " — seem to me of no real value as an explanation of 

 Nature. 



I claim to have shown the necessity of an ever-present 

 Mind as the primal cause both of all physical and biological 

 evolution. This Mind works by and through the primal 

 forces of nature — by means of Natural Selection in the 

 world of Life; and I do not think I could read a book 

 which rejects this method in favour of a vague " law of 

 sympathy." He might as well reject gravitation, electrical 

 repulsion, etc. etc., as explaining the motions of cosmical 

 bodies. . . . —Yours very truly, Alfred R. Wallace. 



To Mr. Ben R. Miller 



Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. January 18, 1913. 



Dear Sir, — Thanks for your kind congratulations, and 

 for the small pamphlet' you have sent me. I have read 

 it with much interest, as the writer was evidently a man 

 of thought and talent. The first lecture certainly gives 



> Bedrock, April, 1912, p. 48. 



« " Shall we have Common Sense ? Some Recent Lectures." By George 

 W. Sleeper. Boston, 1849. 



08 



