H. W. Bates to Dr. F D. Flooker.

‘KING STREET, LEICESTER, MVovember 17th, 1862.

‘My DEAR DR. HOCKER,

‘«T need not say how glad I am to have your good opinion (given so promptly) on my little essay. To tell you the truth I bestowed extra pains on it, because I considered that what I had previously done was not sufficient to merit the high estimation which yourself and Mr. Darwin so very kindly placed upon it. As to being satisfied with the treatment of the society, I shall consider myself a lucky man to escape a severe scolding (I know Kippist will inflict it) for putting it to so much expense. Mr. Busk rather pressed me towards the last, and I finished in a hurry; consequently I had to re-write about two pages, besides other alterations, after the treatise was put in type. ‘The printer was also very careless in altering some of the type in some sheets, which had to be changed, soI am afraid the expense altogether will be great. “You hit me on what I know is a weak point. You will recollect our discussion (by letter) last winter, and will have perceived how much I have been influenced by your teaching, for I have abandoned the notion that physical conditions on the individuals have had anything to do with the production of those close imitations figured. But I find it difficult to abandon the idea of some effect being produced directly on individuals by the action of physical conditions. If half a dozen beetles belonging to different genera -show brassy varieties when living under the sea air, if a number of butterflies, equally independent of each other, have their orange colour changed into brown in the interior of the South American continent, and if many different plants become changed in a similar way on the seaside, or on the mountain, it seems to me that all have been operated upon by local physical conditions. But your remarks, I believe, will tend to change my opinion, for I can see, by their light, that selection may have been, after all, the cause of the establishment of the varietal forms. ‘‘T have thought that when a species first migrated, say to the seaside, the effects of sea air would be visible in a generation or two, and therefore that the maritime variety would be due to direct action. If, however, it required a very great number of generations to effect the change we now see, why then, of course, natural selection must have played a part. You would

This correspondence cannot be found.

say, as to a succulent maritime variety of a plant, that its original parent (its condition before migrating to seaside) varied in a succulent direction quite as much in the interior of the land as on the seaside, but that the seaside habitat favoured the first germs of succulence, and led them on, generation after generation, whereas the interior habitat neglected them or favoured the opposite tendency. ‘‘T have no doubt you have facts to show that a plant like those we are discussing, originally showed (in the first one or two generations) no more tendency to succulence on the seaside than in the interior, and therefore I give itup. I shall be most anxious to have Mr. Darwin’s opinion on the essay. My book is getting on; I have had six sheets of proof down already “Yours sincerely,

“CH. W. BATES,”

The letters which survive do not indicate the precise date when Bates first met Darwin and Hooker. But it may be gathered from the Preface to the Travels and from the more familiar terms of address which result from personal intercourse that he made their acquaintance in 1861. Ina note contributed by Sir Joseph Hooker to the “ Reminiscences of Bates” which appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, April 1892, he says:—

‘‘T first had the pleasure of seeing him—and to see him was to know him, for a more translucent character I never encountered—at Mr. Darwin’s, at Down, very shortly after his return from the Amazons. We there spent several days together, and I can remark none more enjoyable. There was such a fascination in his manner and character, and such a boyish, hearty enjoyment of his return to his native country, and all that it contained, from Shakespeare to Pusch, and from Darwin to the merest bug-hunter (so long as the work was honest). Darwin’s appreciation of him was whole-hearted and all-round, and Bates’s first visit to Down was marked with a white stone in his host’s memory, as in mine, and often recurred to by us. I have over and over again compared and contrasted these two friends, and always, if I may be so presumptuous as to record it, to the advantage of both.’’*

The following correspondence between Bates and Hooker is of permanent interest:—

HT. W. Bates to Dr. F. D. Tlooker

‘“‘ KING STREET, LEICESTER, Yanuary 11th, 1862.

‘ My DEAR SIR,*

‘“IT go to town on Monday, and intend to be present at the Lin. Soc. meeting on Thursday, for the purpose of fulfilling my promise to exhibit a box of mimetic butterflies.

= SE Gop 249:

«| have arranged those species which gave me the data for the conclusions which I try to establish in my memoir.

“They are only a fraction of the whole series, but too many would only confuse. I have endeavoured to put them in such a shape that a general naturalist would perceive the drift of the argument at a glance. Still, many doubts must arise in some minds, and I desire nothing so much as to hear them stated, and to try to answer them. If you correspond with Mr. Lubbock, I hope you will mention that I wish him to put all sorts of difficult questions on the subject. It appears to me that the whole question of natural selection might be put to the test by a close examination of these few insects. ‘‘ They show that the same species varies in a different way in different localities, therefore that natural selection does not explain everything; the local conditions determine what variations shall arise—natural selection creates nothing. I find this latter point is difficult to keep always steadily before the mind. ‘« These specimens show also the divergence of character, that one species tends to become many in a region when the conditions are favourable to its increase, and so forth. ‘«T hope it will not be inconvenient to you if I avail myself of the privilege you have given me to visit you at Kew. Would Thursday suit? Probably I may stay Saturday over; Friday I shall be engaged. ‘* My address is: John o’Groat’s Hotel, Rupert Street, Haymarket. ‘« Yours sincerely,

‘‘H. W. BATES.”

Dr.. D. Hooker to H. W. Bates.

‘“ KEw, Fanuary 13th, 1862.

“My DEAR MR. BATES,

‘‘T am sorry to say that I have to be in town all Thursday, or I should have been delighted to see you.... If you say Saturday I shall try to get some one to meet you at dinner.

‘I am delighted to hear that we shall have the mimetic butterflies at the Linnean. I hardly understand you when you say that natural selection creates nothing, because you do not give the sense in which you use the word ‘create.’ I quite agree that natural selection does not explain everything; but it may often swgges¢ an explanation. After all to me the mystery is variation.* Why should it be that in inorganic nature definite forms and definite proportions are the rule, whilst in biology no two individuals, or parts of individuals, correspond? It is, I find, most difficult with our poor language to keep up a strictly logical method of treating these subjects. I had once the same difficulty in keeping clearly before me the fact that creazzov, in the sense of making species by variation, is not necessarily the English correlative term with ‘creation’ by a miracle out of 0; and yet the words have come to be synouymous as to stating a result. Turn the thing the other way: suppose we had always thought and believed, as a dogma, that all species

Cf Huxley’s Critiques and Addresses, p. 229; Sctence and Culture, p. 307. ad

were created by variation, and suppose it were discovered that it was not so, but that they originated out of 0, or out of inorganic elements, suddenly. I do not think that to the latter view we should transfer the word creaze at all. As our language stands, the word ‘ creation’ logically implies ‘ miracle,’ in the ordinary acceptation of that term. Huxley has rightly pointed out that creation by variation is no less miracle, but it is an ‘ orderly miracle.’ In origin or beginning both miracles are inconceivable; but one is intermittent, the other is continuous, and admits of a conceivable rationale as to its operation. ‘‘ Ever most truly yours, ‘‘ Jos. D. HOOKER:

The letter to which the subjoined is in reply is not among the correspondence which fortunately has been preserved on both sides, but the line of argument which it seeks to refute is fairly clear. The letters here given were written between the reading and publication of the papers in the Tyvansactions of the Linnean Society, and their contents have permanent value as contributions to the question of the operations of external conditions in the modification of species—a question to which addéd interest is given by the theories of Dr. Weismann.”

Dr. FF. D. Hooker to H. W. Bates.

“Kew, Zebruary 2nd, 1862.

‘“My DEAR MR. BATES,

‘Tl have been thinking much of your extremely interesting letter before answering it, and shall be only too glad if I can say anything that can tend to remove any difficulties. I need hardly commence by telling you that my opinions are nothing, that the whole question wants working out by observation, as you are doing, and by experiments which no one has attempted or even suggested, that I know of. What I have said and shall now say, you must take, zo¢ as opinions of mine, but as my tendencies of thought. Certainly I zzclzme to believe that variation is sufficient to insure any amount of divergence, and that it (the principle or fact called variation) is independent who//y as to amount and kind of local circumstances. ‘«« My reasons for thus thinking are:—1. That it has never been shown experimentally that induced habit of the zwdzvzdual is necessary, there being variation enough without it. 2. It seems more philosophical to suppose that the principle of variation is one thing, immutable, and that local circumstances are the secondary causes acting through natural selection on the varieties, killing some, sparing some, directing intermarriages, etc., etc. 3. That it would simplify matters very much if we could thus disentangle the two phenomena of variation and natural selection.

Essays upon Heredity, and Kindred Problems. By Dr. Aug. Weismann (Clarendon Press), vol. i., 1890; vol. ii, 1892, and vide infra, p. Ixxxvil.

I grant that not one of these reasons has a leg to stand upon in a strictly scientific point of view. They are a string of hypotheses, and, further, there are some seemingly opposed facts. (1) Hereditary diseases may have been originally induced by local causes; though I think they may be explained without. It is said that a peculiar form of teeth becomes hereditary in syphilitic families, but I suspect that this could not be perpetuated; it could only be propagated by intermarriage of children of syphilitic parents, which would surely die out. Then, too, I have heard that Dr. Brown-Sequard has induced epilepsy in rabbits, and this has happened in the brood; if really so, this is a strong point; but here again any attempt to perpetuate the brood of epileptics must end in extinction. All these are cases of induced dzseases of the individual being propagated—could induced innocuous peculiarities be so propagated? Englishmen show no tendency to beardless faces after four generations of shaving, and a thousand similar instances may be quoted. The oldest custom of all, circumcision, has had no effect on the organ of the tace, after hundreds of generations, which I have always regarded as a most wonderful fact. Again, though the habit of inducing varieties in plants and animals has gone on from time immemorial, no one has ever supposed that one place is better than another, causing the jirst brood to vary. Whoever plants most gets most varieties, z.e., secures most new sorts by after selection. To put the question in its simplest form: No one ever supposed that of twelve peas in one pod, six grown in England would be more different enter se, or from their parents, than the other six grown in Australia. Again, as I have remarked in the introductory essay to Mew Zealand, the trueness with which seeds from all parts of the world come up in our gardens is astounding. Whoever heard of a new species thus raised by the frst sowing. Were it otherwise, did individual seeds come wf differently in different localities, you would surely, in extreme cases, have different species and different genera coming up at once in our gardens. On the other hand, Rivett wheat seed produces Rivett’s in Australia the first year; but whereas even Rivett wheat has its varieties, and some of them are more suited to Australia than England, after several generations the Rivetts of Australia will differ from those of England, but through natural selection. In all these considerations we must carefully exclude mere stunting, or the effect of overgrowth and undergrowth, which are not variations in the sense I allude to, though I confess to my inability to point out any scientific distinction that is irrefragable. ‘‘Now all your apparent exceptions are, I grant, very strong cases at first sight, but may all be explained by assuming more time than you do for the millions of lost individuals. That ‘species will be constant under one set of conditions, and variable under another,’ is quite true; but this is no proof that even extreme external physical conditions have acted oz the pregnant female so as to have produced greater differences amongst her ova, or on the sperm cells of the male previously, to an extent Jerceptible in the first brood. ‘*T have long, on other grounds, denied that tropical heat or light Aroduces the bright colouring of plants, or that arctic climates Jroduce woolly ‘covering. These phenomena are far too partial to be attributed to such cosmical phenomena. You say, ‘you are convinced that inorganic con-

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