Reference to this work will be found in "Life and Letters," II., pages 309,
358, 373.)


LETTER 405. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(405/1. Mr. Wallace was, we believe, the first to treat the evolution of
Man in any detail from the point of view of Natural Selection, namely, in a
paper in the "Anthropological Review and Journal of the Anthropological
Society," May 1864, page clviii. The deep interest with which Mr. Darwin
read his copy is graphically recorded in the continuous series of
pencil-marks along the margins of the pages. His views are fully given in
Letter 406. The phrase, "in this case it is too far," refers to Mr.
Wallace's habit of speaking of the theory of Natural Selection as due
entirely to Darwin.)

May 22nd 1864.

I have now read Wallace's paper on Man, and think it MOST striking and
original and forcible. I wish he had written Lyell's chapters on Man.
(405/2. See "Life and Letters," III., page 11 et seq. for Darwin's
disappointment over Lyell's treatment of the evolutionary question in his
"Antiquity of Man"; see also page 29 for Lyell's almost pathetic words
about his own position between the discarded faith of many years and the
new one not yet assimilated. See also Letters 132, 164, 170.) I quite
agree about his high-mindedness, and have long thought so; but in this case
it is too far, and I shall tell him so. I am not sure that I fully agree
with his views about Man, but there is no doubt, in my opinion, on the
remarkable genius shown by the paper. I agree, however, to the main new
leading idea.