
Fuly 27, 1871] 
NATURE 
241 

T have not yet answered, cited against me the elementary case of 
capons and other creatures of that ilk. They are entirely beside 
the question. It is as reasonable to quote them in this discussion 
as to conclude that all chaste people must be cowardly and 
effeminate because mutilated animals are so. He also said that 
I mistook the whole rationale of the question, and that it is in- 
fertile creatures that grow fat, and not fatness that causes sterility. 
The only test of the question is the one I have not shrunk from 
applying in this argument (which, by the way, has not to do so 
much with the fat as the hearty and strong). ‘This test is that in 
a great number of cases we can make strong and vigorous but 
sterile plants and animals fertile by starving or bleeding them, 
which proves that it is not the organs that are defective, but that 
the creatures are too hearty. 
The experience of Mr. Lownes on the fecundity of consumptive 
patients, and of the poorest classes as compared with the richest, 
is at issue with that of the doctors and midwives whom I have 
access to, and of all the authorities I know whose opinions are 
based upon statistics. 
Tam not sure that I understand the second and third para- 
graphs of his letter. Whichever way the problem is put, I am 
satisfied if it be admitted that in the more crowded and squalid 
portions of our towns, the population as a rule is more fertile than 
in the less crowded neighbourhoods. ‘The case he cites of poor 
women losing their children early and ceasing to give milk, and, 
in consequence, soon becoming pregnant again, is counterbalanced 
by the fact that among the richest the proportion of those who 
suckle their children is small, and this not because of fastidious- 
ness, but because they secrete little milk. Mr. Lownes once 
more drags out the Indian and the backwoodsman, but he has 
overlooked the answer I gave to Mr, Wallace in my former letter, 
which needs no alteration to meet the case as he has put it. It 
is the case of the meat-eaters against the vegetable-feeders, the 
strong and hearty and active against the comparatively stolid 
and low-conditioned, and as in such cases all the world over the 
former are not so fertile as the latter. Mr. Lownes objects to 
savages being cited, because of qualifying circumstances; he 
mav as well say that it is not fair to test natural selection by 
wild animals, but only by domesticated ones. His treatment of the 
case of the Patagonian women is convenient but flippant. Mr, 
Lownes’ experience in breeding both cattle and sheep and fowls 
and in rearing plants must be extremely limited, or he would 
hardly have made so rash an assertion as that contained in his 
last sentence. The starving of plants and animals to induce them 
to breed is one of the elementary axioms of both gardeners and 
stockkeepers. 
I now come to Dr. Ross’s letter, which, although somewhat 
patronising in parts, is altogether more to my taste than some 
others, He has properly referred me to Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
but I am afraid of venturing into his book, for fear that I should 
open upon myself the floodgates of Evolution. It is not the 
general problem of Evolution about which we are now at issue, but 
that limited form of it called Natural Selection. It is satisfac- 
tory, however, to find that, according to Dr. Ross, Mr. Herbert 
Spencer admits the main facts upon which my argument is 
founded. His doing so is quite a relief after the jaunty manner 
in which some of your correspondents have spoken about the 
matter. To speak of its being late in the day to be now defend- 
ing Mr. Doubeday, to tell one that ‘‘ what one says is ludicrous,” 
“a monstrous error,” &c., &c., is surely a sign that the crowing 
of the Gallic cock has been mistaken for more substantial argu- 
ments, Iam very sorry that Mr. Spencer’s book is not in my 
library, and that I cannot meet with it at the Manchester Free 
Library or Mudie’s, so that until Iam aware of Mr. Spencer’s 
arguments I cannot say how far they affect the position I main- 
tain. If the facts are admitted, as Dr. Ross says they are, I 
confess that I cannot see any other interpretation of them 
than the one given by Mr. Doubleday. Will Mr. Ross do 
me the favour of pointing out what other explanation they are 
capable of ? 
Mr. Wallace has misunderstood me if he thinks me capable of 
sneering at the good and sound work that has been done by 
himself for many years, the value of which I am as conscious of 
as I am of the worthlessness of mere Olympian dogmatism. 
Sneers are only justifiable in answer to contempt, and if he feels 
aggrieved with any of my words I withdraw them. 
Mr. Wallace says my criticism of the phrase Survival of the 
Fittest is satisfactory. In regard to the phrase I used, and for 
which I was severely flouted by Mr. Wallace, he says it is un- 
known to Darwinians ; that may be, but it can hardly be said to 
be unknown to Mr, Darwin himself. Speaking of the problem 

of the conversion of varieties into species, the latter says: ‘‘ The 
inevitable result is an ever recurrent struggle for existence. It 
has been truly said that all nature is at war, the strongest ulti- 
mately prevail, the weakest fail, and we well know that myriad s 
of forms have disappeared from the face of the earth” (* Varia- 
tion of Animals and Plants under Domestication,” i. 5). Let 
me especially commend this extract to Dr. Lionel Beale, for 
whom I entertain the profoundest respect, notwithstanding his 
vituperation of myself. 
I find a difficulty in meeting Mr. Wallace’s latest arguments, 
because they are entirely a friori, and Mr. Wallace asks me to 
admit as premisses the very thing I dispute, namely, the relative 
sterility of strong and hearty animals and plants. I cannot see 
the relevancy of his quotation of the effects of cross-breeding to 
the present argument, unless he means to infer that crosses are 
more vigorous and stronger than pure bred animals, on which 
position I should like to be furnished with a little evidence. 
Again, I cannot test the supposititious problem put by Mr. 
Wallace as to the strongest individual of an animal’s progeny 
eventually being the stem-father of therace. He takes for granted 
that it is, and in doing so begs the question. I can only say the 
only experiments I know do not favour Mr. Wallace’s a priori 
view, and that in the cases we can experiment upon, not the least 
satisfactory of which is the case of man himself, the condition 
most favourable to fertility, as 1 have quoted many examples to 
show, is that of comparative depletion. 
Mr. Wallace, as before, is spare of instances. I can only 
extract two dod fide ones from his letter. He tells us the 
strongest bull leads the herd ; this proves nothing, unless we are 
to inler from it that his progeny is the most numerous, and that 
the biggest and strongest therefore survive. I prefer to quote 
Mr. Darwin himself where I can. If Mr. Wallace’s instance be 
worth anything, how does he account for the following : ‘* The 
decrease in size of the Chillingham and Hamilton cattle must 
have been prodigious, for Prof. Rutimeyer has shown that they 
are almost certainly the descendants of the gigantic Bos prini- 
genius. No doubt this decrease in size may be largely attributed 
to less favourable circumstances. Yetanimals roaming over large 
parks and fed during severe winters can hardly be considered as 
placed under very unfavourable conditions” (‘Variation of Ani- 
mals and Plants under, Domestication ” ii. 1 19). What Mr. Darwin 
says of the wild cattle is equally true of the reindeer kept by the 
Laplanders compared with the wild ones on the Samoyede tun- 
dras, of the red deer of our larger forests compared with the 
skeletons of red deer from the turbaries, and is, perhaps, gene- 
rally true of semi-wild races where man has not intervened with 
the special object of increasing the size by breeding from the 
largest individuals only. 
In regard to the carnivora, I know of no reliable facts. I am 
not proposing the monstrous paradox that those animals which are 
so weak, diseased, or decrepid that they cannot sustain life at all, 
are the only ones that keep up the succession of the animal 
world. The toothless tigress, who cannot kill her food and is 
starving, will most certainly not be the mother of a long race. 
She can do nothing but die, But I say that, judging from analogy, 
it is probable that the lean and comparatively ill-fed tigress will 
breed more freely than the man-eater supplied with regular and 
abundant food. 
The banks of the Chinese rivers and the rough country in the 
south and south-west of Ireland are both inhabited by teeming 
populations, remarkable for their poverty and fertility, and re- 
markable further for sending out immense colonies, which sup- 
plant wherever they go, in Mantchuria, in Songaria, in Glas- 
gow, in Manchester, in New York, the strong hearty, indigenous 
races. This being so (and I only quote these two as examples 
of a whole class), when Mr. Wallace asks the question, ‘ Tlow 
can weak and sickly parents provide for and bring up to maturity 
their offspring, and how are the offspring themselves (undoubtedly 
less vigorous than the offspring of strong and healthy parents) to 
maintain themselves ?” I can only reply that they actually do so : 
Veni, vidi, et cred. 
I must correct a wrong impression that Mr. Wallace has got 
hold of. In this controversy I have no theory ; my only theory 
is that Natural Selection is an ingenious but fallacious explanation 
of the varieties of life. 
I cannot understand Mr. Wallace’s last sentence if it be meant 
for an argument; while if itis only a jew @’espré¢ and witticism, 
it requires a commentary to tell us where the point is. 
Lastly, I will consider Mr. Wallace’s reiterated complaint that 
I have only treated of what is in most cases the least important 
factor in determining the continuance of species. Let me turn 
