REVIEWS 



GENERAL 



Alfred Russel Wallace. Letters and Reminiscences. By James Marchant. 

 In 2 vols. [Pp. vol. i, xi + 320, and vol. ii, 291, with 2 photogravures and 

 8 half-tone plates.] (London : Cassell & Co., 1916. Price 25s. net.) 



FEW tasks are so exacting for a writer of the twentieth century as that of forming 

 a just estimate of those who were most associated with the progress of thought 

 in the nineteenth century. In our earlier years we were, perhaps, ardent dis- 

 ciples — an emotional halo surrounded the master ; and our intellectual agreement 

 was weighted and filled out by a mass of sentiment of the same order as, though 

 doubtless of much lower intensity than religion. As time goes on, and we learn 

 to think for ourselves and study the subsequent progress of science, our intellectual 

 agreement begins to evaporate ; we find ourselves at many points in opposition, 

 and begin to criticise with the vigour which comes from an intimate acquaintance 

 with the master's work and its weaker points. We have assimilated the main 

 principles ; they are now as much part of our minds as they were of his ; they 

 have become part of our ordinary stock-in-trade, and cease to excite our special 

 interest or attention. But the points on which we differ stand out with unnatural 

 prominence before our attention. Yet, although our intellectual agreement may 

 yield to considerations of experience and logic, the emotional halo is not so easily 

 dissipated. We are apt still to feel more strongly about him than about our con- 

 temporaries ; and when that feeling is allied to antagonism, we come to under- 

 estimate his value, until there arises a new generation which can view him 

 impartially, and refer him to his proper place in the history of thought. 



These remarks are prompted by the first reflection of the present reviewer on 

 taking up the Life of Wallace : " What on earth was it that the nineteenth century 

 saw in him ? " A kindly old man, of conspicuous sincerity, and the most admirable 

 moral qualities ; but as we saw him, with scarcely more scientific judgment or 

 philosophic spirit than the average man of business walking down the street. 

 But was he not the co-discoverer of Natural Selection, and was not Natural Selec- 

 tion one of the greatest discoveries of the last century ? Replying first to the 

 latter part of the question, many people now think that it was of greater value in 

 stimulating scientific interest than by its literal acceptance. They say indeed 

 that to a great extent Natural Selection is untrue as a complete description of the 

 workings of nature ; and that in so far as it is true, it is an obvious platitude as 

 though we were to announce from a pulpit that when a strong man fights a weak 

 man, it will in the long run be the strong man that wins. 



However, platitudes have the advantage that even the public find them hard to 

 deny. Organic evolution was formulated in one shape or another long before 

 Wallace was born or any plausible agency could be named for it. But the public 

 (scientific as well as vulgar) refused to believe in evolution because they could not 

 see how it worked, and because there were no references to it in the Bible. What 

 was wanted to secure their conviction was a plausible account of its working ; and, 

 if possible, an account of such transparent simplicity that not even expositions by 



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