st of accidents, can never become adapted to ever-varying
conditions. Moreover, when crossed they reproduce the same pair of types
in the same proportions as at first, and therefore without selection;
they are antagonistic to evolution by continually reproducing injurious
or useless characters--which is the reason they are so rarely found in
nature, but are mostly artificial breeds or sports. My view is,
therefore, that Mendelian characters are of the nature of abnormalities
or monstrosities, and that the "Mendelian laws" serve the purpose of
eliminating them when, as usually, they are not useful, and thus
preventing them from interfering with the normal process of natural
selection and adaptation of the more plastic races. I am also glad to
hear of your new argument for non-inheritance of acquired
characters.--Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO SIR W.T. THISELTON-DYER

_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne, February 8, 1911._

Dear Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer,--I thank you very much for taking so much
trouble as you have done in writing your views of my new book.[38] I am
glad to find that you agree with much of what I have said in the more
evolutionary part of it, and that you differ only on some of my
suggested interpretations of the facts. I have always felt the
disadvantage I have been under--more especially during the last twenty
years--in having not a single good biologist anywhere near me, with whom
I could discuss matters of theory or obtain information as to matters of
fact. I am therefore the more pleased that you do not seem to have come
across any serious misstatements in the botanical portions, as to which
I have had to trust entirely to second-hand information, often obtained
through a long and varied correspondence.

As to your disagreement from me in the conclusions arrived at and
strenuously advocated in the latter portions of my work, I am not
surprised. I am afraid, now, that I have not expressed myself
sufficiently clearly as to the fundamental phenomena which seem to me
absolutely to necessitate a guiding mind and organising power. Hardly
one of my critics (I think absolutely not one) has noticed the
distinction I have tried and intended to draw between Evolution on the
one hand, and the fundamental powers and properties of Life--growth,
assimilation, reproduction, heredity, etc.--on the other. In Evolution I
recognise the action of Natural Selection a