Dear Wallace,—­I thank you for your extremely kind letter, and I am sorry that I troubled you with that of yesterday.  My wife thinks that my son George would be so much pleased at undertaking the work for me, that I will write to him, and so probably shall have no occasion to trouble you.  If on still further reflection, and after looking over my notes, I think that my son could not do the work, I will write again and gratefully accept your proposal.  But if you do not hear, you will understand that I can manage the affair myself.  I never in my lifetime regretted an interruption so much as this new edition of the “Descent.”  I am deeply immersed in some work on physiological points with plants.

I fully agree with what you say about H. Spencer’s “Sociology”; I do not believe there is a man in Europe at all his equal in talents.  I did not know that you had been writing on politics, except so far as your letter on the coal question, which interested me much and struck me as a capital letter.

I must again thank you for your letter, and remain, dear Wallace, yours very sincerely,

CH.  DARWIN.

I hope to Heaven that politics will not replace natural science.

I know too well how atrociously bad my handwriting is.

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The Dell, Grays, Essex.  December 6, 1874.

Dear Darwin,—­Many thanks for your kindness in sending me a copy of your new edition of the “Descent.”  I see you have made a whole host of additions and corrections which I shall have great pleasure in reading over as soon as I have got rid of my horrid book on Geographical Distribution, which is almost driving me mad with the amount of drudgery required and the often unsatisfactory nature of the result.  However, I must finish with it soon, or all the part first done will have to be done over again, every new book, either as a monograph, or a classification, putting everything wrong (for me).

Hoping you are in good health and able to go on with your favourite work, I remain yours very sincerely,

ALFRED B. WALLACE.

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The Dell, Grays, Essex.  July 21, 1875.

Dear Darwin,—­Many thanks for your kindness in sending me a copy of your new book.[99] Being very busy I have only had time to dip into it yet.  The account of Utricularia is most marvellous, and quite new to me.  I’m rather surprised that you do not make any remarks on the origin of these extraordinary contrivances for capturing insects.  Did you think they were too obvious?  I daresay there is no difficulty, but I feel sure they will be seized on as inexplicable by Natural Selection, and your silence on the point will be held to show that you consider them so!  The contrivance in Utricularia and Dionaea, and in fact in Drosera too, seems fully as great and complex as in Orchids, but there is not the same motive force.  Fertilisation