I should have thought that as life was developed once, it probably could and would be developed many times in different places, as month after month, and year after year went by; and that, from the very first, it probably took many different forms and characters, in the same way as crystals take different forms and shapes, even when composed of the same substance. From these many developments of "life" would descend as many separate lines of evolution, one ending in the humming-bird, another in the hippopotamus, a third in the kangaroo, etc., and their pedigrees (however far back they might be traced) would not join until they reached some primitive form of protoplasm,—Yours faithfully,
SAMUEL WADDINGTON.
TO MR. SAMUEL WADDINGTON
Parkstone, Dorset. February 23, 1901.
Dear Sir,—Darwin believed that all living things originated from "a few forms or from one"—as stated in the last sentence of his "Origin of Species." But privately I am sure he believed in the one origin. Of course there is a possibility that there were several distinct origins from inorganic matter, but that is very improbable, because in that case we should expect to find some difference in the earliest [pg 078] forms of the germs of life. But there is no such difference, the primitive germ-cells of man, fish or oyster being almost indistinguishable, formed of identical matter and going through identical primitive changes.
As to the humming-bird and hippopotamus, there is no doubt whatever of a common origin—if evolution is accepted at all; since both are vertebrates—a very high type of organism whose ancestral forms can be traced back to a simple type much earlier than the common origin of mammals, birds and reptiles.—Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.