Correspondence on Biology, etc. 



an approach to Darwin's theory, perhaps nearer than any 

 other, as he almost implies the " survival of the fittest " 

 as the cause of progressive modification. But his language 

 is imaginative and obscure. He uses " education " appar- 

 ently in the sense of what we should term " effect of the 

 environment." 



The second lecture is even a more exact anticipation of 

 the modern views as to microbes, including their transmis- 

 sion by flies and other insects and the probability that the 

 blood of healthy persons contains a sufficiency of destroyers 

 of the pathogenic germs — such as the white blood-corpuscles 

 — to preserve us in health. 



But he is so anti-clerical and anti-Biblical that it is no 

 wonder he could not get a hearing in Boston in 1847. — Yours 

 very truly, Alfred R. Wallace. 



To Prof. Poulton 



Old Orchard, Broadstane, Dorset. April 2, 1913. 



My dear Poulton, — About two months ago an American 

 . . . sent me the enclosed booklet,* which he had been told 

 was very rare, and contained an anticipation of Darwinism. 



This it certainly does, but the writer was highly imagina- 

 tive, and, like all the other anticipators of Darwin, did not 

 perceive the whole scope of his idea, being, as he himself 

 says, not sufficiently acquainted with the facts of nature. 



His anticipations, however, of diverging lines of descent 

 from a common ancestor, and of the transmission of 

 disease germs by means of insects, are perfectly clear and 

 very striking. 



As you yourself made known one of the anticipators of 

 Darwin, whom he himself had overlooked, you are the right 



1 See footnote to preceding letter. The book formed the subject of Prof. 

 Poulton's Presidential Addresses (May 24, 1913, and May 25, 1914) to the 

 Linnean Society {Proceedings, 1912-13, p. 26, and 1913-14, p. 23). The above 

 letter is in part quoted in the former address. 



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