lviii. The deep interest with
which Mr. Darwin read his copy is graphically recorded in the continuous
series of pencil-marks along the margins of the pages. His views are
fully given in Letter 406. The phrase, "in this case it is too far,"
refers to Mr. Wallace's habit of speaking of the theory of Natural
Selection as due entirely to Darwin.)

May 22nd 1864.

I have now read Wallace's paper on Man, and think it MOST striking and
original and forcible. I wish he had written Lyell's chapters on Man.
(405/2. See "Life and Letters," III., page 11 et seq. for Darwin's
disappointment over Lyell's treatment of the evolutionary question in
his "Antiquity of Man"; see also page 29 for Lyell's almost pathetic
words about his own position between the discarded faith of many years
and the new one not yet assimilated. See also Letters 132, 164, 170.) I
quite agree about his high-mindedness, and have long thought so; but in
this case it is too far, and I shall tell him so. I am not sure that
I fully agree with his views about Man, but there is no doubt, in my
opinion, on the remarkable genius shown by the paper. I agree, however,
to the main new leading idea.

LETTER 406. TO A.R. WALLACE.

(406/1. This letter was published in "Life and Letters," III., page 89.)

Down, [May] 28th [1864].

I am so much better that I have just finished a paper for the Linnean
Society (406/2. On the three forms, etc., of Lythrum.); but 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 (406/3. "Anthropological Review," May 1864.) received on the 11th.
(406/4. Mr. Wallace wrote, May 10th, 1864: "I send you now my little
contribution to the theory of the origin of man. I hope you will be able
to agree with me. If you are able [to write] I shall be glad to have
your criticisms. I was led to the subject by the necessity of explaining
the vast mental and cranial differences between man and the apes
combined with such small structural differences in other parts of the
body,--and also by an endeavour to account for the diversity of human
races combined with man's almost perfect stability of form during all
historical epochs." 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." (406/5. "Reader," April 16th, 1864, an abstract of Mr.
Wallace: "On the Phenomena of V