It behoves you of all men to take up the gauntlet he has thrown down.—­Very truly yours,

HERBERT SPENCER.

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HERBERT SPENCER TO A.R.  WALLACE

Queen’s Hotel, Cliftonville, Margate, Aug. 19, 1894.

Dear Mr. Wallace,—­I cannot at all agree with you respecting the relative importance of the work you are doing and that which I wanted you to do.  Various articles in the papers show that Lord Salisbury’s argument is received with triumph, and, unless it is disposed of, it will lead to a public reaction against the doctrine of evolution at large, a far more serious evil than any error which you propose to rectify among biologists.  Everybody will look to you for a reply, and if you make no reply it will be understood that Lord Salisbury’s objection is valid.  As to the non-publication of your letter in the Times, that is absurd, considering that your name and that of Darwin are constantly coupled together.—­Truly yours,

HERBERT SPENCER.

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TO PROF.  POULTON

Parkstone, Dorset.  September 8, 1894.

My dear Poulton,—­I was glad to see your exposure of another American Neo-Lamarckian in Nature.[24] It is astonishing how utterly illogical they all are!  I was much pleased with your point of the adaptations supposed to be produced by the inorganic environment when they are related to the organic.  It is I think new and very forcible.  For nearly a month I have been wading through Bateson’s book,[25] and writing a criticism of it, and of Galton, who backs him up with his idea of “organic stability.” ...  Neither he nor Galton appears to have any adequate conception of what Natural Selection is, or how impossible it is to escape from it.  They seem to think that, given a stable variation, Natural Selection must hide its diminished head!

Bateson’s preface, concluding reflections, etc., are often quite amusing....  He is so cocksure he has made a great discovery—­which is the most palpable of mare’s nests.—­Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.—­I allude of course to his grand argument—­“environment continuous—­species discontinuous—­therefore variations which produce species must be also discontinuous”! (Bateson—­Q.E.D.).

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TO PROF.  POULTON

Parkstone, Dorset.  February 19, 1895.