Alfred Russel Wallace 



called '^ Darwin and Wallace," which was to have been a 

 comparative study of their literary and scientific writings, 

 with an estimate of the present position of the theory of 

 Natural Selection as an adequate explanation of the process 

 of organic evolution. Wallace had promised to give as much 

 assistance as possible in selecting the material without 

 which the task on such a scale would obviously have been 

 impossible. Alas ! soon after the agreement with the 

 publishers w^as signed and in the very month that the plan 

 of the work was to have been shown to Wallace, his hand 

 was unexpectedly stilled in death; and the book remains 

 unwritten. But as the names of Darwin and Wallace are 

 inseparable even by the scythe of time, a slight attempt 

 is here made, in the first sections of Part I. and Part II., 

 to take note of their ancestry and the diversities and 

 similarities in their respective characters and environ- 

 ments — social and educational ; to mark the chief charac- 

 teristics of their literary works and the more salient 

 conditions and events which led them, independently, to 

 the idea of Natural Selection. 



Finally, it may be remarked that up to the present time 

 the unique work and position of Wallace have not been fully 

 disclosed owing to his great modesty and to the fact that he 

 outlived all his contemporaries. '' I am afraid,'' wrote Sir 

 W. T. Thiselton-Dyer to him in one of his letters (1893), 

 ^^ the splendid modesty of the big men will be a rarer com- 

 modity in the future. No doubt many of the younger ones 

 know an immense deal; but I doubt if many of them will 

 ever exhibit the grasp of great principles which we owe to 

 you and your splendid band of contemporaries." If this 

 work helps to preserve the records of the influence and 

 achievements of this illustrious and versatile genius and of 

 the other eminent men who brought the great conception of 

 Evolution to light, it will surely have justified its existence. 



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