My dear Darwin

Many thanks for your letter.¹ Of course I did not expect my paper to have any effect on your opinions. You have looked at all the facts so long from your special point of view, that it would require conclusive arguments to influence you, and these, from the complex nature of the question are probably not to be had.² We must I think leave the case in the hands of others, and I am in hopes that my paper may call sufficient attention to the subject to induce some of the great school of Darwinians to take the question up and work it out thoroughly. You have brought such a mass of facts to support your view & have argued it so fully that I hardly think it necessary for you to do more. Truth will prevail, as you as well as I wish it to do. I will only make one or two remarks. The word “voluntary” was inserted in my proofs only in order to distinguish clearly between the two radically distinct kinds of “sexual selection.” Perhaps “conscious” would be a better word to which I think you will not object, & I will alter it when I republish.³ I lay no stress on the word “voluntary”.

Sound- & scent-producing organs in males are surely due to “natural” or “automatic” as opposed to “conscious” selection. If there were gradations in the sounds produced, from mere noises up to elaborate music—the case would be analogous to that of “colour” and “ornament”. Being however comparatively simple, natural selection, owing to their use as a guide, seems sufficient. The louder sound, heard at a greater distance, would attract or be heard by more females,*—but this would not imply choice in the sense of rejecting a male whose stridulation was a trifle less loud than another’s, which is the essense of the theory as applied by you to colour & ornament. But greater general vigour would almost certainly lead to greater volume or persistence of sound, & so the same view will apply to both cases on my theory.

Thanks for the references you give me.⁴ My ignorance of German prevents me supporting my views by the mass of observations continually being made abroad, so I can only advance my own ideas for what they are worth.

I like Dorking much, but can find no house to suit me, so fear I shall have to move again.⁵

With best wishes | Believe me | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace.

Charles Darwin F.R.S.

*Or it may attract other males & lead to combats for the females.