Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 | Page 3

James Marchant
process of
organic evolution. Wallace had promised to give as much assistance as
possible in selecting the material without which the task on such a scale
would obviously have been impossible. Alas! soon after the agreement
with the publishers was signed and in the very month that the plan of
the work was to have been shown to Wallace, his hand was
unexpectedly stilled in death; and the book remains unwritten. But as

the names of Darwin and Wallace are inseparable even by the scythe of
time, a slight attempt is here made, in the first sections of
Part I.
and
Part II., to take note of their ancestry and
the diversities and
similarities in their respective characters and environments--social and
educational; to mark the chief characteristics of their literary works and
the more salient conditions and events which led them, independently,
to the idea of Natural Selection.
Finally, it may be remarked that up to the present time the unique work
and position of Wallace have not been fully disclosed owing to his
great modesty and to the fact that he outlived all his contemporaries. "I
am afraid," wrote Sir W.T. Thiselton-Dyer to him in one of his letters
(1893), "the splendid modesty of the big men will be a rarer commodity
in the future. No doubt many of the younger ones know an immense
deal; but I doubt if many of them will ever exhibit the grasp of great
principles which we owe to you and your splendid band of
contemporaries." If this work helps to preserve the records of the
influence and achievements of this illustrious and versatile genius and
of the other eminent men who brought the great conception of
Evolution to light, it will surely have justified its existence.

PART I

I.--Wallace and Darwin--Early Years
As springs burst forth, now here, now there, on the mountain side, and
find their way together to the vast ocean, so, at certain periods of
history, men destined to become great are born within a few years of
each other, and in the course of life meet and mingle their varied gifts
of soul and intellect for the ultimate benefit of mankind. Between the

years 1807 and 1825 at least eight illustrious scientists "saw the
light"--Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Joseph Hooker, T.H. Huxley, Herbert
Spencer, John Tyndall, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and
Louis Agassiz; whilst amongst statesmen and authors we recall
Bismarck, Gladstone, Lincoln, Tennyson, Longfellow, Robert and
Elizabeth Browning, Ruskin, John Stuart Blackie and Oliver Wendell
Holmes--a wonderful galaxy of shining names.
The first group is the one with which we are closely associated in this
section, in which we have brought together the names of Charles
Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace--between whose births there was a
period of fourteen years, Darwin being born on the 12th of February,
1809, and Wallace on the 8th of January, 1823.
In each case we are indebted to an autobiography for an account of
their early life and work, written almost entirely from memory when at
an age which enabled them to take an unbiased view of the past.
The autobiography of Darwin was written for the benefit of his family
only, when he was 67; while the two large volumes entitled "My Life"
were written by Wallace when he was 82, for the pleasure of reviewing
his long career. These records are characterised by that charming
modesty and simplicity of life and manner which was so marked a
feature of both men.
In the circumstances surrounding their early days there was very little
to indicate the similarity in character and mental gifts which became so
evident in their later years. A brief outline of the hereditary influences
immediately affecting them will enable us to trace something of the
essential differences as well as the similarities which marked their
scientific and literary attainments.
The earliest records of the Darwin family show that in 1500 an ancestor
of that name (though spelt differently) was a substantial yeoman living
on the borders of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. In the reign of James I.
the post of Yeoman of the Royal Armoury of Greenwich was granted to
William Darwin, whose son served with the Royalist Army under
Charles I. During the Commonwealth, however, he became a barrister

of Lincoln's Inn, and later the Recorder of the City of Lincoln.
Passing over a generation, we find that a brother of Dr. Erasmus
Darwin "cultivated botany," and, when far advanced in years, published
a volume entitled "Principia Botanica," while Erasmus developed into a
poet and philosopher. The eldest son of the latter "inherited a strong
taste for various branches of science ... and at a very early age collected
specimens of all kinds." The youngest son, Robert Waring, father of
Charles Darwin, became a successful physician, "a
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