Characteristics 



tell me. I don't see how, under the circumstances, yon 

 can do anything. I was never more surprised in my life, 

 in fact, than when I read your letter. The whole thing is 

 too childishly preposterous. 



Komanes laments over me because he says I wilfully mis- 

 understand his theory. The fact is, poor fellow, that I do 

 not think he understands it himself. If his life had been 

 destined to be prolonged I should have done all in my power 

 to have induced him to occupy himself more with observa- 

 tion and less with mere logomachy. 



I cannot get him to face the fact that natural hybrids 

 are being found to be more and more common amongst 

 plants. At the beginning of the century it was supposed 

 that there were some sixty .recognisable species of willows 

 in the British Isles : now they are cut down to about 

 sixteen, and all the rest are resolved into hybrids. — Ever 

 sincerely, ^ rj^ Thiselton-Dybr. 



Wallace was a seeker after Truth who was never shy of his 

 august mistress, whatever robes she wore. '' I feel within 

 me," wrote Darwin to Henslow, '' an instinct for truth, or 

 knowledge, or discovery, of something of the same nature as 

 the instinct of virtue." This was equally true of Wallace. 

 He had a fine reverence for truth, beauty and love, and he 

 feared not to expose error. He paid no respect to time- 

 honoured practices and opinions if he believed them to be 

 false. Vaccination came under his searching criticism, and 

 in the face of nearly the whole medical faculty he denounced 

 it as quackery condemned by the very evidence used to defend 

 it. He very carefully examined the claims of phrenology, 

 which had been laughed out of court by scientific men, and 

 he came to the conclusion that " in the present (twentieth) 

 century phrenology will assuredly attain general acceptance. 

 It will prove itself to be the true science of the mind. Its 

 practical uses in education, in self-discipline, in the re- 

 formatory treatment of criminals, and in the remedial 



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