aera 
NATURE ‘se: 
THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1912. 
SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES. 
XXXVIII.—Dr. AtFrep RussEL WALLACE, 
DG.,, O.M. Bekes- 
la a retrospect of British biology during the 
‘“ wonderful century ’’ there stand out four 
men whose names will endure—Lyell, Darwin, 
Wallace, and Galton. The first three were 
closely kindred spirits whose work begins and 
ends a great epoch. Galton marked out his own 
way along quite an independent line, which will 
be the more appreciated the more the kinship of 
his ideas with those of Weismann and Mendel 
is recognised. Now that Wallace, the sole sur- 
vivor of the group, has attained the ninetieth 
year of his age, and the sixty-fourth year of 
active service and productiveness, we may write 
of him in the spirit of the lines of Aristophanes : 
“Honour to the venerable man who, in the de- 
clining vale of years, continues to learn new 
subjects and add to his wisdom.”’ 
The distinction of endurance came to Lyell 
and Wallace through the readiness of each to 
grasp an opportunity in a revolution of thought 
such as can never recur, through a continued line 
of attack by precisely similar methods of reason- 
ing over an extremely broad field. When Lyell 
faltered, Darwin and Wallace went on. As to 
the closeness of the intellectual sequence between 
these three men, those who know the original 
edition of the second volume of ‘‘ The Principles 
of Geology,” published in 1832, find it the second! 
biologic classic of the century, on which Darwin, 
t! rough his higher and much more creative vision, 
Suilt up his “ Journal of Researches.’’ Lyeli and 
Darwin may be said to have united in guiding 
the mind of Wallace, because the young natural- 
ist, fourteen years the junior of Darwin, took the 
works of both his seniors with him on his journey 
to South America, in which his career fairly 
began. From his observations during twelve 
years of life in the tropics, he will be remem- | 
bered not only as one of the independent dis- 
coverers of the theory of natural selection, but 
next to Darwin as one of the great naturalists 
of the century. 
astounding in these days of specialism. His 
main lines of thought, although in many in- 
stances suggested somewhat 
suddenly, were 
1 Lamarck’s *‘‘ Philosophie Zoologique,”’ published in 
regarded as the first biologic classic of the century. 
NO. 2224, VOL. 89] 
1809, may be 
His range and originality are | 
| for the first time for him the zoological windows 
| 
developed and presented in a deliberate and 
masterly way through a series of papers and 
books. 
Nature and nurture conspire to form a 
naturalist. Predisposition, an opportune period, 
and a happy series of events favoured Alfred 
Russel Wallace. He was born January 8, 1823, 
in Usk, Monmouthshire, of remote Scotch and 
Huguenot and of immediate English ancestry. 
His school life was uninspiring, and he feels that 
he owed more of his real education to the culti- 
vating influence of his home in Hertford. At 
sixteen we find him as a land surveyor in Bed- 
fordshire, also making his first observations on 
plants, and these early and serious studies in 
botany, continuing for four years, prepared him 
for the plant wonders of the tropics. At the age 
of twenty-one he came to London. He after- 
ward regarded his difficulty in obtaining employ- 
ment as the first turning point in his career, ‘‘ for 
otherwise,’’ he writes, ‘‘it seems very unlikely 
that I should ever have undertaken what at that 
time seemed rather a wild scheme, a journey to 
the almost unknown forests of the Amazon in 
order to observe nature and make a living by 
collecting.’”’ He also gives us, in his autobio- 
graphic volumes of 1905, ‘‘My Life, A Record 
of Events and Opinions,’’ 
of his state of mind at this time. 
an interesting sketch 
““T do not think that at this formative period 
I could be said to have shown special superiority 
in any of the higher mental faculties, but I pos- 
sessed a strong desire to know the causes of 
things, a great love of beauty in form and colour, 
and a considerable but not excessive desire for 
order and arrangement in whatever I had to do. 
If I had one distinct mental faculty more promin- 
ent than another it was the power of correct 
reasoning from a review of the known facts in 
any case to the causes or laws which produced 
them, and also in detecting fallacies in the reason- 
ing of other persons.’’ 
The parallel between Wallace’s intellectual 
tendencies and environment and those of Charles 
Darwin is extraordinary. They enjoyed a similar 
current of influence from men, from books, and 
from nature. Thus the second turning point in 
| the life of Wallace was his meeting with Henry 
Walter Bates, through whom he acquired his 
zest for the wonders of insect-life which opened 
of nature. It is noteworthy that the greater 
and most original part of his direct observations 
of nature were upon the adaptations of insects. 
Both naturalists fell under the spell of the same 
Q 
