Dear Poulton,—­ ...  I am glad that Lankester has replied to the almost disgraceful Centenary article in the Times.  But it is an illustration of the widespread mischief the Mutationists, etc., are doing.  I have no doubt, however, it will all come right in the end, though the end may be far off, and in the meantime we must simply go on, and show, at every opportunity, that Darwinism actually does explain the whole fields of phenomena that they do not even attempt to deal with, or even approach....—­Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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TO MRS. FISHER

Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne.  March 6, 1909.

Dear Mrs. Fisher,—­ ...  Another point I am becoming more and more impressed with is, a teleology of fundamental laws and forces rendering development of the infinity of life-forms possible (and certain) in place of the old teleology applied to the production of each species.  Such are the case of feathers reproduced annually, which I gave at end of lecture, and the still more marvellous fact of the caterpillar, often in two or three weeks of chrysalis life, having its whole internal, muscular, nervous, locomotive and alimentary organs decomposed and recomposed into a totally different being—­an absolute miracle if ever there is one, quite as wonderful as would be the production of a complex marine organism out of a mass of protoplasm.  Yet, because there has been continuity, the difficulty is slurred over or thought to be explained!—­Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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TO SIR W.T.  THISELTON-DYER

Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne.  June 22, 1909.

Dear Sir William,—­On Saturday, to my great pleasure, I received a copy of the Darwin Commemoration volume.  I at once began reading your most excellent paper on the Geographical Distribution of Plants.  It is intensely interesting to me, both because it so clearly brings out Darwin’s views and so judiciously expounds his arguments—­even when you intimate a difference of opinion—­but especially because you bring out so clearly and strongly his views on the general permanence of continents and oceans, which to-day, as much as ever, wants insisting upon.  I may just mention here that none of the people who still insist on former continents where now are deep oceans have ever dealt with the almost physical impossibility of such a change having occurred without breaking the continuity of terrestrial life, owing to the mean depth of the ocean being at least six times the mean height of the land, and its area nearly three times, so that the whole mass of the land of the existing continents would be required to build up even one small continent in the depths of the Atlantic or Pacific!  I have demonstrated this, with a diagram, in my “Darwinism” (Chap, XII.), and it has never been either refuted or noticed, but passed by as if it did not exist!  Your whole discussion of Dispersal and Distribution is also admirable, and I was much interested with your quotations from Guppy, whose book I have not seen, but must read.