ty full abstract of the more interesting parts of my
Papilionidae paper[40] to the _Reader_, which, as you say, is a splendid
paper.

Trusting Mrs. Darwin and all your family are well, and that you are
improving, believe me yours most sincerely,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

_Down, Bromley, Kent. May 28, 1864._

Dear Wallace,--I am so much better that I have just finished a paper for
the Linnean Society; but as I am not yet at all strong I felt much
disinclination to write, and therefore you must forgive me for not
having sooner thanked you for your paper on Man received on the 11th.
But first let me say that I have hardly ever in my life been more struck
by any paper than that on variation, etc. etc., in the _Reader_. I feel
sure that such papers will do more for the spreading of our views on the
modification of species than any separate treatises on the single
subject itself. It is really admirable; but you ought not in the Man
paper to speak of the theory as mine; it is just as much yours as mine.
One correspondent has already noticed to me your "high-minded" conduct
on this head.

But now for your Man paper, about which I should like to write more than
I can. The great leading idea is quite new to me, viz. that during late
ages the mind will have been modified more than the body; yet I had got
as far as to see with you that the struggle between the races of man
depended entirely on intellectual and _moral_ qualities. The latter part
of the paper I can designate only as grand and most eloquently done. I
have shown your paper to two or three persons who have been here, and
they have been equally struck with it.

I am not sure that I go with you on all minor points. When reading Sir
G. Grey's account of the constant battles of Australian savages, I
remember thinking that Natural Selection would come in, and likewise
with the Esquimaux, with whom the art of fishing and managing canoes is
said to be hereditary. I rather differ on the rank under the
classificatory point of view which you assign to Man: I do not think any
character simply in excess ought ever to be used for the higher
division. Ants would not be separated from other hymenopterous insects,
however high the instinct of the one and however low the instincts of
the other.

With respect to the differences of race, a conjecture has occurred to me
that much may be due to the correlation of complexion (and consequently
h