Alfred Russel Wallace 



Letters and Reminiscences 



INTRODUCTION 



IN Westminster Abbey there repose, almost side by side, 

 by no conscious design yet with deep significance, 

 the mortal remains of Isaac Newton and of Charles 

 Darwin. " ' The Origin of Species,' " said Wallace, '' will 

 live as long as the ^Principia' of Newton." Near by 

 are the tombs of Sir John Herschel, Lord Kelvin and Sir 

 Charles Lyell; and the medallions in memory of Joule, 

 Darwin, Stokes and Adams have been rearranged so as 

 to admit similar memorials of Lister, Hooker and Alfred 

 Eussel Wallace. Now that the plan is completed, Darwin 

 and Wallace are together in this wonderful galaxy of the 

 great men of science of the nineteenth century. Several 

 illustrious names are missing from this eminent company; 

 foremost amongst them being that of Herbert Spencer, the 

 lofty master of that synthetic philosophy which seemed to his 

 disciples to have the proportions and qualities of an endur- 

 ing monument, and whose incomparable fertility of creative 

 thought entitled him to share the throne with Darwin. It 

 was Spencer, Darwin, Wallace, Hooker, Lyell and Huxley 

 who led that historic movement which garnered the work of 

 Lamarck and Buff on, and gave new direction to the cease- 

 less interrogation of nature to discover the '' how '' and 

 the '' why " of the august progression of life. 



B 



