I am deeply interested in all that concerns the powers of
Natural Selection, but, though I admit there are a few things it cannot
do, I do not yet believe sterility to be one of them.
In case your son has turned his attention to mathematical physics, will
you ask him to look at the enclosed question, which I have vainly
attempted to get an answer to?--Believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
_4 Chester Place, Regent's Park, N.W. March 19-24, 1868._
My dear Wallace,--I have sent your query to Cambridge to my son. He
ought to answer it, for he got his place of Second Wrangler chiefly by
solving very difficult problems. I enclose his remarks on two of your
paragraphs: I should like them returned some time, for I have not
studied them, and let me have your impression.
I have told E. Edwards to send one of my large photographs to you
addressed to 76-1/2 Westbourne Grove, not to be forwarded. When at home
I will send my carte.
The sterility is a most [? puzzling] problem. I can see so far, but I am
hardly willing to admit all your assumptions, and even if they were all
admitted, the process is so complex and the sterility (as you remark in
your note) so universal, even with species inhabiting quite distinct
countries (as I remarked in my chapter), together with the frequency of
a difference in reciprocal unions, that I cannot persuade myself that it
has been gained by Natural Selection, any more than the difficulty of
grafting distinct genera and the impossibility of grafting distinct
families.
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