314 'DESCENT OF MAN '—EXPRESSION. [1871. 



seems to me a curious subject which has been strangely 

 neglected." 



It should, however, be remembered that the subject had 

 been before his mind, more or less, from 1837 or 1838, as 

 I judge from entries in his early note-books. It was in 

 December, 1839, that he began to make observations on 

 children. 



The work required much correspondence, not only with 

 missionaries and others living among savages, to whom he 

 sent his printed queries, but among physiologists and phy- 

 sicians. He obtained much information from Professor 

 Donders, Sir W. Bowman, Sir James Paget, Dr. W. Ogle, 

 Dr. Crichton Browne, as well as from other observers. 



The first letter refers to the ' Descent of Man.'] 



C. Darwin to A. R. Wallace. 



Down, January 30 [1871]. 

 My dear Wallace, — Your note * has given me very great 

 pleasure, chiefly because I was so anxious not to treat you 

 with the least disrespect, and it is so difficult to speak fairly 

 when differing from any one. If I had offended you, it 

 would have grieved me more than you will readily believe. 

 Secondly, I am greatly pleased to hear that Vol. I. interests 



* In the note referred to, dated January 27, Mr. Wallace wrote : — 

 " Many thanks for your first volume which I have just finished reading 

 through with the greatest pleasure and interest ; and I have also to thank 

 you for the great tenderness with which you have treated me and my 

 heresies." 



The heresy is the limitation of natural selection as applied to man. 

 My father wrote (' Descent of Man,' i. p. 137) : — " I cannot therefore un- 

 derstand how it is that Mr. Wallace maintains that ' natural selection 

 could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that 

 of an ape.'" In the above quoted letter Mr. Wallace wrote: — "Your 

 chapters on ' Man ' are of intense interest, but as touching my special 

 heresy not as yet altogether convincing, though of course I fully agree 

 with every word and every argument which goes to prove the evolution or 

 development of man out of a lower form." 



