Alfred Russel Wallace: The Story of a Great Discoverer |
Common terms and phrases
acquaintance acquired characters age of steel Alfred Russel Wallace Amazon animals appreciate beautiful biologist blinkers brother changes Charles Darwin civilisation collection contemporary Darwin and Wallace devoted direct disease Environment and moral Erasmus Darwin ethical Eva Gore-Booth evidence evolution existence experimentalist fact Fanny Burney father fauna forced fortunate fossil generalisations geographical distribution George Silk habits Hertford Grammar School human affairs human progress Huxley intellectual aimlessness interest investigations islands joint paper Lamarck land surveying Linnæus machine Malay Archipelago Malthus ment mental modern natural history Natural Selection naturalist Neath ness never observations origin of species outer world Owen period phenomena poets problems pursuit recognise result Revolt of Democracy Robert Owen science of breeding scientific knowledge scientific thought Sclater society spirit struggle survival tendencies Ternate theory of natural tion UNIVERSITY variations vast voyage Wallace's mind Wonderful Century writings wrote zoological geography
Popular passages
Page 6 - It is a condition in which the food, warmth, and clothing, which are necessary for the mere maintenance of the functions of the body in their normal state, cannot be obtained ; in which men, women, and children are forced to crowd into dens wherein decency is abolished, and the most ordinary conditions of healthful existence are impossible of attainment ; in which the pleasures within reach are reduced to brutality and drunkenness ; in which the pains accumulate at compound interest in the shape...
Page 23 - It was now, when the danger appeared past, that I began to feel fully the greatness of my loss. With what pleasure had I looked upon every rare and curious insect I had added to my collection ! How many times, when almost overcome by the ague, had I crawled into the forest and been rewarded by some unknown and beautiful species ! How many places, which no European foot but my own had trodden, would have been recalled to my memory by the rare birds and insects they had furnished to my collection...
Page 35 - Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask the question, Why do some die and some live ? And the answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped ; from enemies, the strongest, the swiftest, or the most cunning ; from famine, the best hunters or those with the best digestion ; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve...
Page 35 - The more I thought over it the more I became convinced that I had at length found the long-sought-for law of nature that solved the problem of the origin of species. For the next hour I thought over the deficiencies in the theories of Lamarck and of the author of the Vestiges, and I saw that my new theory supplemented these views and obviated every important difficulty.
Page 36 - Vestiges," and I saw that my new theory supplemented these views and obviated every important difficulty. I waited anxiously for the termination of my fit so that I might at once make notes for a paper on the subject. The same evening I did this pretty fully, and on the two succeeding evenings wrote it out carefully in order to send it to Darwin by the next post, which would leave in a day or two.
Page 35 - ... considering the amount of individual variation that my experience as a collector had shown me to exist, then it followed that all the changes necessary for the adaptation of the species to the changing conditions would be brought about ; and as great changes in the environment are always slow, there would be ample time for the change to be effected by the survival of the best fitted in every generation.
Page 36 - ... that I might at once make notes for a paper on the subject. The same evening I did this pretty fully, and on the two succeeding evenings wrote it out carefully in order to send it to Darwin by the next post, which would leave in a day or two. I wrote a letter to him in which I said that I hoped the idea would be as new to him as it was to me, and that it would supply the missing factor to explain the origin of species.
Page 48 - That theory is, briefly, that the distribution of the various species and groups of living things over the earth's surface, and their aggregation in definite assemblages in certain areas, is the direct result and outcome of a complex set of causes, which may be grouped as " biological
Page 48 - ... dwindle away, often breaking up into separate portions which long survive in very remote regions. The physical causes are also mainly of two kinds. We have, first, the geographical changes which at one time isolate a whole fauna and flora, at another time lead to their dispersal and intermixture with adjacent faunas and floras — and it was here important to ascertain and define the exact nature and extent of these changes, and to determine the question of the general stability or instability...
Page 24 - And now everything was gone, and I had not one specimen to illustrate the unknown lands I had trod, or to call back the recollection of the wild scenes I had beheld!