Characteristics 



insects. Another correspondent, who had joined the Xavy. 

 wrote a number of long letters to Wallace setting forth his 

 conscientious objections to killing, arrived at after reading 

 Wallace's books; and although Wallace endeavoured from 

 prudential considerations to restrain him from giving up 

 his position, he nevertheless wholly sympathised with him 

 and in the end warmly defended him when it was necessary 

 to do so. The sacrifice, too, of human life in dangerous 

 employments for the purpose of financial gain, no less than 

 the frightful slaughter of the battlefield, was abhorrent to 

 Wallace and aroused his intensest indignation. Life to 

 him was sacred. It had its origin in the spiritual king- 

 dom. " We are lovers of nature, from * bugs ' up to 

 * humans,' " he wrote to Mr. Fred Birch. 



By every means he laboured earnestly to secure an equal 

 opportunity of leading a useful and happy life for all men 

 and women. He championed the cause of women — of their 

 freer life and their more active and public part in national 

 service. He found the selective agency, which was to work 

 for the amelioration he desired, in a higher form of sexual 

 selection, which will be the prerogative of women ; and there- 

 fore woman's position in the not distant future *' will be 

 far higher and more important than any which has been 

 claimed for or by her in the past." When political and 

 social rights are conceded to her on equality with men, her 

 free choice in marriage, no longer influenced by economic 

 and social considerations, will guide the future moral pro- 

 gress of the race, restore the lost equality of opportunity to 

 every child born in our country, and secure the balance 

 between the sexes. *' It will be their (women's) special 

 duty so to mould public opinion, through home training 

 and social influence, as to render the women of the future 

 the regenerators of the entire human race." 



He was acutely anxious that his ideals should be realised 



245 



