My
argument is that sexual selection can have had nothing to do with the
patterns, neither can any other form of selection due to vigour, wits,
and so forth, because they are not correlated with them. They just go
their own gait, uninfluenced by anything that we can find or reasonably
believe in, of a _naturally selective influence_, in the plain meaning
of the phrase.--Very sincerely yours,
FRANCIS GALTON.
* * * * *
TO THEO. D.A. COCKERELL
_Parkstone, Dorset. March 10, 1891._
Dear Mr. Cockerell,-- ... Your theory to account for the influence of a
first male on progeny by a second seems very probable--and in fact if,
as I suppose, spermatozoa often enter ova without producing complete
fertilisation, it must be so. _That_ would be easily experimented on,
with fowls, dogs, etc., but I do not remember the fact having been
observed except with horses. It ought to be common, when females have
young by successive males.--Yours faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The next letter relates to a controversy with Romanes concerning Herbert
Spencer's argument about Co-adaptation which Romanes had urged in
support of Neo-Lamarckism as opposed to Natural Selection. Prof. Meldola
endeavoured to show that the difficulties raised by Spencer and
supported by Romanes had no real weight because the possibility of
so-called "co-adaptations" being developed _successively_ in the order
of evolution had not been reckoned with.
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