acquaintance of mine of many years' standing.
Personally, I like him very much; but for his writings I confess I have
no great admiration.

Pray believe me I had no mission of any sort on his part to write to
you. But I feel so sorry for him that when he told me how much he
regretted that he did not stand well with you, I could not resist
writing to tell you of the calamities that have befallen him.

I must confess I was in total ignorance of what you tell me. I don't
see how, under the circumstances, you can do anything. I was never more
surprised in my life, in fact, than when I read your letter. The whole
thing is too childishly preposterous.

Romanes laments over _me_ because he says I wilfully misunderstand his
theory. The fact is, poor fellow, that I do not think he understands it
himself. If his life had been destined to be prolonged I should have
done all in my power to have induced him to occupy himself more with
observation and less with mere logomachy.

I cannot get him to face the fact that natural hybrids are being found
to be more and more common amongst plants. At the beginning of the
century it was supposed that there were some sixty recognisable species
of willows in the British Isles: now they are cut down to about sixteen,
and all the rest are resolved into hybrids.--Ever sincerely,

W.T. THISELTON-DYER.

* * * * *

Wallace was a seeker after Truth who was never shy of his august
mistress, whatever robes she wore. "I feel within me," wrote Darwin to
Henslow, "an instinct for truth, or knowledge, or discovery, of
something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue." This was
equally true of Wallace. He had a fine reverence for truth, beauty and
love, and he feared not to expose error. He paid no respect to
time-honoured practices and opinions if he believed them to be false.
Vaccination came under his searching criticism, and in the face of
nearly the whole medical faculty he denounced it as quackery condemned
by the very evidence used to defend it. He very carefully examined the
claims of phrenology, which had been laughed out of court by scientific
men, and he came to the conclusion that "in the present (twentieth)
century phrenology will assuredly attain general acceptance. It will
prove itself to be the true science of the mind. Its practical uses in
education, in self-discipline, in the reformatory treatment of
criminals, and in the remedial treatment of