5] and writing a
criticism of it, and of Galton, who backs him up with his idea of
"organic stability." ... Neither he nor Galton appears to have any
adequate conception of what Natural Selection is, or how impossible it
is to escape from it. They seem to think that, given a stable
variation, Natural Selection must hide its diminished head!

Bateson's preface, concluding reflections, etc., are often quite
amusing.... He is so cocksure he has made a great discovery--which is
the most palpable of mare's nests.--Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.--I allude of course to his grand argument--"environment
_continuous_--species _discontinuous_--therefore _variations_ which
produce species must be also _discontinuous_"! (Bateson--Q.E.D.).

* * * * *

TO PROF. POULTON

_Parkstone, Dorset. February 19, 1895._

My dear Poulton,--I have read your paper on "Theories of Evolution"[26]
with great pleasure. It is very clear and very forcible, and I should
think must have opened the eyes of some of your hearers. Your cases
against Lamarckism were very strong, and I think quite conclusive. There
is one, however, which seems to me weak--that about the claws of
lobsters and the tails of lizards moving and acting when detached from
the body. It may be argued, fairly, that this is only an incidental
result of the extreme muscular irritability and contractibility of the
organs, which might have been caused on Lamarckian as well as on the
Darwinian hypothesis. The running of a fowl after its head is chopped
off is an example of the same kind of thing, and this is certainly not
useful. The detachment itself of claw and tail is no doubt useful and
adaptive.

When discussing the objection as to failures not being found fossil,
there are two additional arguments to those you adduce: (1) Every
failure has been, first, a success, or it could not have come into
existence (as a species); and (2) the hosts of huge and very
specialised animals everywhere recently extinct are clearly failures.
They were successes as long as the struggle was with animal competitors
only, physical conditions being highly favourable. But, when physical
conditions became adverse, as by drought, cold, etc., they failed and
became extinct. The entrance of new enemies from another area might
equally render them failures. As to your question about myself and
Darwin, I had met him once only for a few minutes at the British Museu