NOVEMBER 20, 1913] 
for having refused to lecture in Oxford. He 
replied November 6, 1908 :— 
I am a believer in inspiration. All my best ideas 
have come to me suddenly. 1 had quite determined to 
decline this one [invitation] when, lying on my couch, 
an idea suddenly came to me! I saw that the sub- 
ject had never been treated from that point of view— 
{ felt that I could and should like so to treat it, and 
that it would suit the audience and do gooa. So I 
accepted. I hope I shall be able to do it justice. 
The late Aubrey Moore, in a remarkable ad- 
dress delivered thirty years ago to the Church 
Congress in Reading—an address noticed in the 
columns of NaturE—spoke with disparagement of 
a mind “built like a modern ironclad in water- 
tight compartments.” But the criticism does not 
apply when the sliding doors are kept in good 
working order by constant use. 
Wallace was keenly interested in many subjects 
—psychical, political, and economic—that would 
not attract the majority of the readers of Nature. 
With those who met him in the field of biological 
and especially of evolutionary inquiry, the whole 
of the intercourse was filled to overflowing with 
the give-and-take of friendly discussion. The 
opportunities that came all too rarely would have 
been wasted in argument over fundamental differ- 
ences or in the vain attempt to reconcile divergent 
tastes. All such subjects were therefore shut out. 
“T am still very busy,” he wrote, February 23, 
1903, ‘‘and all the time I can spare from the garden 
I give to a new book I am writing—a kind of pot- 
boiler—though one that I am immensely interested in, 
but that you will not care about.” 
Many will doubtless be inclined to think, with 
the writer of the article last week (NATURE, p. 
322), that Wallace’s views on Mendelism were a 
product of the intellectual rigidity of old age. 
The facts here brought forward, to which numbers 
more might have been added, prove, however, 
that he retained his vitality and elasticity and 
keenness to a degree that was perfectly marvel- 
lous. With regard to Mendelism, he felt, as many 
far younger men feel, that it is both interesting 
and important, but that from the first it has been 
put in a wrong light, and erroneously used as a 
weapon of attack upon other subjects to which 
it is not in any way antagonistic. 
His attitude towards “‘ Mutation” was different ; 
for here he knew that all the essential facts had 
been long pondered over by a greater mind than 
that of any living naturalist. Thus he wrote, 
July 27, 1907 :— 
Mutation as a theory is absolutely nothing new— 
only the assertion that new species originate always 
in sports—for which the evidence adduced is the most 
meagre and inconclusive of any ever set forth with 
such pretentious claims! 
And again on March 1, 1909, he used words 
with which a firm believer in natural selection 
as the motive cause of evolution may fitly con- 
clude :— 
I have no doubt, however, it will all come right 
in the end—though the end may be far off, and in 
NO. 2299, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 349 
the meantime we must simply go on, and show, at 
every opportunity, that Darwinism actually does ex- 
plain whole fields of phenomena that they [Muta- 
tionists] do not even attempt to deal with, or even to 
approach. 1 OR gt ha 
Dike. if, -P. THEARLE, 
De S. J. P. THEARLE, whose death is an- 
nounced, was born in the year 1846, and 
was thus at the time of his death sixty-seven years 
of age. He was born in Portsmouth, and entered 
as an apprentice at Devonport Dockyard in 1860, 
From this, as the result of competitive examina- 
tion, he passed into the Royal School of Naval 
Architecture, South Kensington, in the year 1865, 
and after three years’ study was graduated as a 
Fellow of the Royal School. He spent eight years 
in government service as a naval constructor, and 
then resigned his appointment to become surveyor 
to Lloyd’s Register, in which Society he ultimately 
rose in the year 1909, after passing several stages, 
to the position of chief ship surveyor on the 
retirement of Mr. H. J. Cornish. ; 
One of his most notable achievements was the 
preparation of several text-books on naval archi- 
tecture, which became standard books for students 
for many years, and were so used by teachers in 
the Science and Art evening classes. Many naval 
architects feel themselves indebted to Dr. Thearle 
for their earliest introduction to scientific ship- 
building. These works not only dealt with 
scientific naval architecture, but also practical 
ship laying off and ship construction. As a sur- 
veyor of Lloyd’s Register, he was notable for the 
independent action in connection with the ships 
under his survey, while always at the same time 
being loyal to his Society, and in the carrying out 
of its rules. His promotion to the senior posi- 
tion in his society was hailed as an excellent 
appointment, and a merited recognition of his life 
work. 
Latterly the calls upon his time had been ex- 
ceedingly onerous; he having been appointed on 
the committee formed to investigate subdivision 
of ships, under the presidency of Sir Archibald 
Denny, and on the committee created by the 
Government to investigate the question of suitable 
load lines for steamers, on both of which commit- 
tees he proved himself a most active and useful 
member. Apart from this, he was in frequent 
request as a representative of his society. He was 
also on the Board of Trade Advisory Committee, 
which since the loss of the Titanic has been in more 
or less constant session. 
Dr. Thearle had thus been for the last forty-five 
years closely identified as an individual and as an 
official with the progress made in naval architec- 
ture, and his contribution to that advance as an 
official and as a scientific naval architect have 
been of no mean order. Probably his best-known 
work during the last years was the reorganisa- 
tion of Lloyd’s rules for the construction of ships, 
bringing them up to their present position, in 
which they are abreast of the latest advances in 
scientific naval architecture. 
