s occur on the same island. I
quite agree with your distinction between dimorphic forms and varieties;
but I doubt whether your criterion of dimorphic forms not producing
intermediate offspring will suffice, for I know of a good many varieties
which must be so called that will not blend or intermix, but produce
offspring quite like either parent.

I have been particularly struck with your remarks on geographical
distribution in Celebes. It is impossible that anything could be better
put, and would give a cold shudder to the immutable naturalists.

And now I am going to ask a question which you will not like. How does
your journal get on? It will be a shame if you do not popularise your
researches.

LETTER 190. A.R. WALLACE TO CHARLES DARWIN. Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, July
2nd, 1866.

I have been so repeatedly struck by the utter inability of numbers
of intelligent persons to see clearly, or at all, the self-acting and
necessary effects of Natural Selection, that I am led to conclude that
the term itself, and your mode of illustrating it, however clear and
beautiful to many of us, are yet not the best adapted to impress it
on the general naturalist public. The two last cases of the
misunderstanding are: (1) the article on "Darwin and his Teachings" in
the last "Quarterly Journal of Science," which, though very well written
and on the whole appreciative, yet concludes with a charge of something
like blindness, in your not seeing that Natural Selection requires the
constant watching of an intelligent "chooser," like man's selection to
which you so often compare it; and (2) in Janet's recent work on the
"Materialism of the Present Day," reviewed in last Saturday's "Reader,"
by an extract from which I see that he considers your weak point to be
that you do not see that "thought and direction are essential to the
action of Natural Selection." The same objection has been made a score
of times by your chief opponents, and I have heard it as often stated
myself in conversation. Now, I think this arises almost entirely from
your choice of the term "Natural Selection" and so constantly comparing
it in its effects to Man's Selection, and also your so frequently
personifying nature as "selecting," as "preferring," as "seeking only
the good of the species," etc., etc. To the few this is as clear as
daylight, and beautifully suggestive, but to many it is evidently a
stumbling-block. I wish, therefore, to suggest to you the possibi