NA TURE 



145 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1905. 



A GREAT NATURALIST. 

 My Life: a Record of Events and Opinions. By 

 Alfred Russel Wallace. Vol. i., pp. xii + 435; 

 vol. ii., pp. viii + 459. With facsimile letters, illus- 

 trations, and portraits. (London : Chapman and 

 Hall, Ltd., 1905.) Price 25s. net. 

 -j-^VERYONE will be glad that the Nestor of the 

 P^ evolutionist camp has been able himself to tell 

 us the story of his life. It has been a long life of 

 over fourscore years, full of work, rich in achieve- 

 ment, starred with high ideals, and the story of it 

 must have been pleasant to write as it is pit. is. ml to 

 read. It has been many-sided to a greater degree 

 than that of most scientific investigators, for Alfred 

 Russel Wallace has always had more than profes- 

 sional irons in the fire, and has always been as much 

 interested in practising biology as in theorising about 

 it At the editor's request we have confined our 

 attention, however, to what the author tells us of his 

 work as naturalist and biologist, though it is difficult, 

 and not altogether legitimate perhaps, to abstract off 

 one aspect of a life in this fashion. 



There does not seem to have been anything defin- 

 able in Wallace's inheritance to account for his be- 

 coming a great naturalist. Nor was there much in 

 his nurture to lead him in that direction except that 

 he was country-bred in beautiful and interesting 

 places. Thrown early on his own resources to make 

 his way in life, he began when about fourteen to 

 work at surveying — in which Herbert Spencer had 

 also his early discipline and it was in trying 10 

 understand his instruments and the earth he mea- 

 sured that he first became scientific. He tells us that 

 in his solitary rambles, nature gradually laid hold of 

 him, claiming to be understood as well as enjoyed. 

 From the stars and the earth his interest spread to 

 flowers, and, with the help of Lindley's " Elements " 

 and Loudon's " Encyclopaedia of Plants," he became 

 a keen field-botanist. He began to feel " the joy 

 which every discovery of a new form of life gives to 

 the lover of nature," and this was the turning-point 

 of his life. 



During a year of school-teaching at Leicester 

 (1S44), Wallace got to know Bates, who made him an 

 enthusiastic entomologist, " opening a new aspect of 

 nature," and he also read Malthus's famous essay, 

 " without which I should probably not have hit upon 

 the theory of natural selection." Another book that 

 impressed him was Humboldt's " Personal Narrative 

 of Travels in South America," which awakened a de- 

 sire to visit the tropics, a desire soon strengthened by 

 Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle." It is interesting 

 to find that as early as 1845 Wallace was speculating 

 upon the origin of species, and had a warm appre- 

 ciation of the " Vestiges of the Natural History of 

 Creation." 



Early in 184S, when he was twenty-five, Wallace set 

 out, along with Bates, to explore and collect on the 

 Amazon, and on the tale of his adventures, long since 

 NO. 1885, VOL. J$) 



told, the " Life " throws some sidelights. There is a 

 vivid description of the disastrous fire on board the 

 rubber-laden ship which brought Wallace part of the 

 way home in 1852. The holocaust of all his treasures 

 was hard to bear, but what had been sent on during 

 his journey, and those notes and drawings which 

 were saved from the fire, sufficed to lay the founda- 

 tions of his scientific reputation, and, perhaps, as he 

 says, the disaster was, for him, a blessing in disguise, 

 for it made him continue his Wanderjahre. 



The " central and controlling " chapter in Wallace's 

 life was his eight years' wandering throughout the 

 Malay Archipelago, the story of which has fascinated 

 many thousands of readers. He had found his voca- 

 tion, and enthusiasm grew' upon him. "Who ever," 

 he wrote, " did anything good or great who was not 

 an enthusiast? " The love of solitude grew upon 

 him; it was so "very favourable to reflection." For 

 though he was earning a competency by collecting, 

 and though his knowledge of many groups of animals 

 became expert, he was always pondering over big 

 problems, and some of his friends at home shook 

 their heads at his "theorising." "The problem of 

 the origin of species was rarely absent from his 

 thoughts," and at Sarawak, in 1855, he wrote what 

 Huxley called a " powerful essay " on " The law 

 which has regulated the introduction of new species " 

 — a hint of what was coming. At Ternate, in 1858, 

 when ill with intermittent fever, he began thinking 

 oyer what he had learned from Malthus, and the 

 theory of natural selection " suddenly flashed upon 

 him." He wrote straight off to Darwin, and every- 

 one knows how the two papers were read on the same 

 day at the Linnean Society, and how the two dis- 

 coverers were united in a friendship than which there 

 has been nothing finer in the history of science. 



From 1862 to 1871 Mr. Wallace lived in London, 

 and the " Life " gives an account of his scientific and 

 literary labours, and interesting glimpses of many 

 scientific men whom he came to know, such as Lyell, 

 Spencer, Huxley, W. B. Carpenter, and St. George 

 Mivart. He tried for various posts, e.g. the secre- 

 tptyship of the Royal Geographical Society (which 

 Mr. Bates obtained), and the guardianship of Epping 

 Forest (in connection with which he had some lumin- 

 ous ideas), but he was left free to continue his literary 

 and scientific work, and to try to make things better 

 for his country. Soon after his marriage, in 1866, he 

 began to migrate by stages into the country — to Grays 

 (where he wrote his " Geographical Distribution "), 

 to Croydon (where he wrote his " Island Life "), to 

 Godalming, to Parkstone, and was able to live quietly 

 on his earnings and on a well-merited Civil List pen- 

 sion. Apart from his tour in America, where he gave 

 the Lowell lectures in 1886, occasional holidays, e.g. 

 at Davos, and occasional unprofitable scrimmages, his 

 life was very uneventful, as men count events. By 

 nature quiet, gentle, and reflective, he had no am- 

 bitions save for truth and justice ; he was satisfied 

 with plain living and high thinking, and the esteem 

 of all who really knew him. Thus for many years 

 he has cultivated his erarden and served his fellow- 



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