Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T06:23:21.997Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Scientific Naturalism and Social Reform in the Thought of Alfred Russel Wallace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

John R. Durant
Affiliation:
Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University College of Swansea, Swansea SA2 8PP, South Wales.

Extract

There are few more likeable figures in the history of science than Alfred Russel Wallace. A warm-hearted and generous man, he won the admiration of virtually all who knew him for what one contemporary called ‘the charm of his personality’. Typical of this charm was his behaviour over the potentially sensitive question of his co-authorship with Darwin of the theory of natural selection. Ignoring all the disputes which might so easily have followed the events of 1858, Wallace never ceased to give Darwin all the credit for their theory. In 1864, the author of the Origin chided the younger man for his deference, writing, ‘you ought not … to speak of the theory as mine; it is just as much yours as mine. One correspondent has already noticed to me your “high-minded” conduct on this head’. But Wallace's reply was equally firm, ‘As to the theory of Natural Selection itself, I shall always maintain it to be actually yours and yours only’. If anyone is responsible for the comparative neglect from which the ‘other man’ of Darwinism has suffered, it is the other man himself.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 Saleeby, C. W., Parenthood and race culture: an outline of eugenics, London, 1909, p. 314.Google Scholar

2 Quoted by Rockell, F. in, ‘The last of the great Victorians. Special interview with Dr Alfred Russel Wallace’, The Millgate monthly, 1912, 7, 657–63 (663).Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 663.

4 Darwin, to Wallace, , 28 05 1864Google Scholar, in Marchant, J. (ed.), Alfred Russel Wallace: letters and reminiscences, 2 vols., London, New York, Toronto, & Melbourne, 1916, i, 153.Google Scholar

5 Wallace, to Darwin, , 29 05 1864Google Scholar, in ibid., i. 158. A detailed account of Wallace's contribution to the theory of evolution by natural selection is provided by McKinney, H. Lewis in his Wallace and natural selection, New Haven & London, 1972.Google Scholar

6 Ward, James, Naturalism and agnosticism, 2nd edn., 2 vols., London, 1903, i, 20.Google Scholar

7 Between 1860 and 1870 Wallace published nearly forty papers on the results of his work in the Malay Archipelago. These are listed in Marchant, , op. cit. (4), ii, 259–60.Google Scholar

8 Darwin, wrote to Wallace, on 1 01 1864Google Scholar, ‘In a letter received two or three weeks ago from Asa Gray he writes: “I read lately with gusto Wallace's exposé of the Dublin man on Bees’ cells, etc.” … Further on [he] says (after speaking of Agassiz's paper on Glaciers in the Atlantic magazine and his recent book entitled Method of study): “Pray set Wallace upon these articles.” So Asa Gray seems to think much of your powers of reviewing, and I mention this as it assuredly is laudari a laudato’; in Darwin, F. and Seward, A. C. (eds.), More letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols., London & New York, 1903, i, 245.Google Scholar The paper by Wallace to which Gray referred was a response to the anti-Darwinian the Rev Haughton, Samuel, entitled, ‘Remarks on the Rev S. Haughton's paper on the bee's cell and on the origin of species’, Annals and magazine of natural history, 1863, 12, 303.Google Scholar Darwin accurately summed up the chief merits of Wallace's contribution to the evolutionary debate when he wrote in 1870, ‘You are certainly an unparalleled master of lucidly stating a case and in arguing’; in Marchant, , op. cit. (4), i, 253.Google Scholar

9 See notes 59 and 61 below.

10 ‘The origin of human races and the antiquity of man deduced from the theory of natural selection’, Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 1864, 2, clviiclxxxvii.Google Scholar

11 This aspect of Wallace's work is discussed in great detail by Kottler, Malcolm Jay in his article, ‘Alfred Russel Wallace, the origin of man, and spiritualism’, Isis, 1974, 65, 145–92.Google ScholarPubMed

12 Darwin, wrote on 26 01 1870Google Scholar, ‘But I groan over Man—you write like a metamorphosed (in retrograde direction) naturalist, and you the author of the best paper that ever appeared in the Anthropological review!. Eheu! Eheu! Eheu!—Your miserable friend’; in Marchant, , op. cit. (4), i, 251.Google Scholar

13 Wallace, to Darwin, , 18 04 1869Google Scholar, ibid., i, 244.

14 Wallace, to MrsFisher, , 7 11 1905Google Scholar, ibid., ii, 225. In 1901 Wallace refused a nomination for the Presidency of the Society for Psychical Research because, ‘I am so widely known as a “crank” and a “faddist”’; ibid., ii, 208.

15 Romanes, G. J., ‘Darwin's latest critics’, The nineteenth century, 1890, 27, 823–32 (831).Google Scholar

16 Wallace, to Thiselton-Dyer, W. T., 17 01 1893Google Scholar, in Marchant, , op. cit., (4), ii, 221.Google Scholar

17 These criticisms emerged time and again in Wallace's defence of spiritualism, in his opposition to vaccination, and so on. For example, in The scientific aspect of the supernatural, London, 1866, passim, he sketched the history of science, from the refusal of Galileo's critics to look down his telescope, to the condemnation of the Vestiges, in terms of the ignorance, arrogance, and prejudice of the scientific community.

18 In 1880 Darwin and Huxley organized a petition to Mr Gladstone on Wallace's behalf. It was signed by twelve leading naturalists including Bates, Hooker, and Lubbock, and it brought from the Prime Minister a recommendation that Wallace be awarded a pension of £200 per annum. A letter from Darwin to Wallace dated 7 January 1881 contains a list of the signatures; Wallace papers, British Museum MSS., 46434. In a rough draft of Wallace's career, prepared for the petition, Darwin wrote, ‘He has been living upon the interest of the money obtained by the sale of his collections in the Malay Archipelago, but he once told me that the failure of some investments has greatly reduced this & that he is a poorer man than when he returned’; Darwin papers, Cambridge University Library, box 91.

19 Smith, R., ‘Alfred Russel Wallace: philosophy of nature and man’, The British journal for the history of science, 1972, 6, 177–99CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Turner, F. M., Between science and religion: the reaction to scientific naturalism in late Victorian Britain, New Haven & London, 1974Google Scholar, chapter V; Kottler, M. J., op. cit. (11).Google Scholar These authors have established a far broader context for the evaluation of Wallace's work than was previously available. Smith, in particular, gives an extremely useful account of the relationship between phrenology and spiritualism in Wallace's thought, from the perspective of his own interest in the history of physiological psychology in the nineteenth century. If these contributions have a weakness, it is perhaps that they concentrate upon Wallace's spiritualism to the virtual exclusion of all else. Thus, although he does discuss Wallace's political views, Smith writes that ‘He assumed the “natural” existence of progress because of his spiritual philosophy of nature’ (p. 193).Google Scholar In my opinion, this is to give to spiritualism a significance within Wallace's thought which is hardly justified. If anything, Wallace's faith in progress contributed to his attraction to spiritualism, rather than vice-versa. However, in general my analysis builds upon the work of Smith, Turner, and Kottler, and seeks to extend the sort of analysis they have used to the question of Wallace's social and political thought.

20 Wallace, , My life: a record of oients and opinions, 2 vols., London, 1905, i, 1314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar These volumes are the chief source of information on Wallace's early life.

21 Ibid., i, 79–222.

22 Ibid., i, 87–9. ‘Halls of Science’ were established by Owenites throughout the 1830s and 1840s. In his book Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America, London, 1969Google Scholar, Harrison, J. F. C. records that they were ‘a cross between a mechanics' institute and a methodist chapel’ (p. 222).Google Scholar

23 Wallace, , op. cit. (20), i, 104.Google Scholar

24 Owen, Robert, Report to the County of Lanark (1820)Google Scholar, reprinted in Gatrell, V. A. C. (ed.), A new view of society and report to the County of Lanark, London, 1970, p. 270.Google Scholar

25 Wallace, , ‘The neglect of phrenology’, in The wonderful century: its successes and failures, London, 1898, pp. 159–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 The paradox involved in Combe's position was an important one. Phrenology was essentially a science of inborn mental dispositions (‘faculties’). But in Combe's work the emphasis was shifted from the notion of innateness to that of plasticity, allowing phrenology to become subservient to a melioristic social philosophy. In this way, the concept of the use and development of the mental faculties served as a bridge between (hereditarian) phrenology and (environmentalist) Owenism; and this was a bridge which many, including Wallace, crossed in the 1830s and 1840s. See Harrison, , op. cit. (22), pp. 86–7, 239–40.Google Scholar It was phrenology as a science of the relationship between organisms and their environment, rather than phrenology as the science of innate mental faculties, which was so influential on many of the evolutionary naturalists. This is analysed in detail by R. M. Young in his Mind, brain and adaptation in the nineteenth century, Oxford, 1970.Google Scholar

27 In 1833, Combe told Robert Chambers that his Constitution of man had been written to demonstrate, ‘The separate existence and operation of each natural law; the necessity for obeying all of them; and the evident adaptation of all to the moral and intellectual advancement of the race’; in Gibbon, C., The life and letters of George Combe, 2 vols., London, 1878, i, 296–7.Google Scholar

28 Combe, George, The constitution of man, Edinburgh, 1828, pp. 200–1.Google Scholar

29 Wallace, , op. cit. (20), i, 88–9Google Scholar; also ii, 234–5.

30 Wallace, , op. cit. (25), p. 164.Google Scholar

31 Wallace, , op. cit. (20), i, 240.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., i, 232. For the influence of Malthus on Wallace see McKinney, , op. cit. (5), pp. 8096.Google Scholar

33 Wallace, , op. cit. (20), i, 236.Google Scholar

34 The complete text of Wallace's important letter is reprinted and discussed by McKinney, H. Lewis in a note on ‘Wallace's earliest observations on evolution: 28 December 1845’, Isis, 1969, 60, 370–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed On the above date Wallace wrote, ‘I have rather a more favorable opinion of the “Vestiges” than you appear to have. I do not consider it as a hasty generalisation, but rather as an ingenious hypothesis strongly supported by some striking facts and analogies’ (P. 372).Google Scholar

35 Ibid., p. 372.

36 In the Vestiges Chambers wrote, ‘Through these faculties, man is connected with the external world, and supplied with active impulses to maintain his place in it as an individual and a species’; facsimile of 1st edn., Leicester, , 1969, p. 342.Google Scholar Chambers acknowledged his own debt to Combe in the twelfth edition of the Vestiges—the one in which he finally owned up to his authorship of the work (Edinburgh, 1884, pp. xvi, xxx).

37 Wallace, , op. cit. (20), i, 224.Google Scholar

38 These aspects of Wallace's work are not explored here in any depth. Further details may be found in Williams-Ellis, A., Darwin's moon: a biography of Alfred Russel Wallace, London & Glasgow, 1966Google Scholar; George, W., Biologist philosopher: a study of the life and writings of Alfred Russel Wallace, London, 1964Google Scholar; and McKinney, , op. cit. (5).Google Scholar

39 See McKinney, , op. cit. (5).Google Scholar

40 Wallace, , Species notebook, Linnean Society of London MS, p. 31.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 32.

42 Wallace, , Natural selection and tropical nature, London, 1891, p. 144.Google Scholar

43 Wallace, , ‘On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species’, Annals and magazine of natural history, 1855, 16, 184–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Natural selection and tropical nature, op. cit. (42), p. 6.Google Scholar

44 Wallace, , ‘On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type’, Journal of the proceedings of the Linnean Society, Zoology, 1859, 3, 5362Google Scholar, reprinted in ibid., p. 32.

45 Ibid., p. 29.

46 McKinney, , op. cit. (5), pp. 8096.Google Scholar

47 Marchant, , op. cit. (4), i, p. 53.Google Scholar McKinney discusses the evidence that Wallace considered the orang-utan to offer clues to human evolution in Wallace and natural selection, op. cit. (5), pp. 91–4.Google Scholar

48 Wallace, , Journal, 1857–8, Linnean Society of London MS, entry for 13 03 1857.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., entry for 6 April 1857.

50 Wallace, Presidential address to the anthropological section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in Report of the British Association, Nottingham, 1866, p. 93.Google Scholar

52 The dispute over the question of how many species of man exist was revived in the 1860s in the wake of the evolutionary debate. In her book Victorian attitudes to race (London, 1971)Google Scholar, Christine Bolt describes the prominent place which this issue occupied at the meetings of the Anthropological Society of London (chapter I). See also Burrow, J. W., ‘Evolution and anthropology in the 1860s; the Anthropological Society of London, 1863–71’, Victorian studies, 1963, 7, 137–54.Google Scholar The president of the Anthropological Society, James Hunt, was a leading representative of polygenism; and he and many others were critical of Wallace's approach. See Hunt, , ‘On the application of the principle of natural selection to anthropology’, Anthropological review, 1866, 4, 320–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Wallace, , op. cit., (10), pp. clviiclxxxvii.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., pp. clxiv–clxv.

56 Ibid., pp. clxix–clxx.

57 Ibid., pp. clx–clxxi.

58 The distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ social Darwinism is taken from Bernard Semmel's excellent book, Imperialism and social reform. English social-imperial thought, 1895–1915, London, 1960Google Scholar, chapter II. Semmel is concerned chiefly with the ideology of ‘social imperialism’ at the turn of the century, but he traces this ideology back to the ‘external social Darwinism’ of men like Carlyle, Kingsley, and Dickens, who opposed the individualism of the political economists at the same time as they condoned a racist attitude towards ‘inferior’ breeds of man. It is vital to distinguish between the widely different positions which are embraced by the general term ‘social Darwinism’. See also note 77 below.

59 Wallace, , op. cit. (10), p. clxx (n).Google Scholar

60 Spencer, H., Social statics, London, 1851, pp. 416–17.Google Scholar

61 Wallace wrote to Darwin, on 2 01 1864Google Scholar, ‘If you are able to bear reading, will you allow me to take the liberty of recommending you a book? The fact is I have been so astonished and delighted with the perusal of Spencer's works that I think it a duty to society to recommend them to all my friends who I think can appreciate them … I am utterly astonished that so few people seem to read Spencer … He appears to me as far ahead of John Stuart Mill as J.S.M, is of the rest of the world, and, I may add, as Darwin is of Agassiz’; in Marchant, , op. cit. (4), i, 150–1.Google Scholar For further details of Wallace's relationship with Spencer, see My life, op. cit. (20), ii, 2333.Google Scholar

62 Williams, Raymond, ‘Social Darwinism’ in Benthall, J. (ed.), The limits of human nature, London, 1973, p. 120.Google Scholar Like all good historical generalizations, Williams' claim is not without exceptions. The social Darwinism of Spencer and his followers was generally individualist and reactionary, but that of, say Karl Pearson, was very different. See Semmel, , op. cit. (58), pp. 3841.Google Scholar

63 There is no single work covering the history of social Darwinism in Britain, but for America the standard work is Hofstadter, R., Social Darwinism in American thought, revised edn., Boston, 1955.Google Scholar

64 Marchant, , op. cit. (4), i, 55.Google Scholar

65 Wallace, , ‘How to civilise savages’, The reader, 17 06 1865, p. 113.Google Scholar

66 Wallace, , The Malay archipelago, London, 1869, pp. 455–6.Google Scholar

67 Greg, W. R., ‘On the failure of “natural selection” in the case of man’, Fraser's magazine, 1868, 78, 353–62 (358).Google Scholar

68 Ibid., p. 359.

69 Ibid., p. 358.

70 Ibid., p. 362.

71 Greg's article provoked considerable discussion. In the Descent of man Darwin referred to it in a note: ‘This article seems to have struck many persons, and has given rise to two remarkable essays and a rejoinder in the “Spectator”, Oct. 3rd. and 17th, 1868. It has also been discussed in the “Q,. Journal of Science”, 1869, p. 152Google Scholar, and by Mr. Lawson Tait in the “Dublin Q. Journal of Medical Science”, 02 1869Google Scholar, and by MrLankester, E. Ray in his “Comparative Longevity”, 1870, p. 128Google Scholar … I have borrowed ideas from several of these writers’; 2nd edn., London, 1874, p. 205 (n. 9). It seems likely that Wallace was impressed by Greg's argument because after 1868 he often repeated it. See, for example, note 85 below.

72 Wallace, to Darwin, , 20 01 1869Google Scholar, in Marchant, , op. cit. (4), i, 232.Google Scholar

73 ‘The alleged failure of natural selection in the case of man’, Quarterly journal of science, 1869, 6, 152.Google Scholar

74 Ibid., p. 152. It is possible that E. Ray Lankester was the author of this passage, since a closely similar argument appears in his Comparative longevity, London, 1870, pp. 8991.Google Scholar

75 It was Marx and Engels who first noted the link between Darwin and Hobbes. Marx wrote in 1862: ‘It is remarkable how Darwin recognises among beast and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, “inventions”, and the Malthusian “struggle for existence”. It is Hobbes, ' bellum omnium contra omnesGoogle Scholar, and one is reminded of Hegel's Phānomenologie, where civil society is described as a “spiritual animal kingdom”, while in Darwin the animal kingdom figures as civil society’; in Selected correspondence of Marx and Engels, 3rd edn., Moscow, 1975, p. 120.Google Scholar Compare Engels to Lavrov, 1875, ibid., p. 284. The very title of the standard work on Hobbes reveals his importance for late nineteenth-century social Darwinism. See Macpherson, C. B., The political theory of possessive individualism, London & Oxford, 1962.Google Scholar

76 It should be emphasized that this conflict was not new. As Hobbes and the political economists had already established the individualist position, so Comte, for example, had already set out the case for the other side. In his Caurs de philosophie positive, the man who coined the term ‘altruism’ outlined the course of human progress as a transition from ‘animalité’ to ‘humanité’, from ‘l'instinct personnel’ to ‘l'instinct sympathetique’ (2nd edn., Paris, 1864, vi, 721).Google Scholar What was new in the late nineteenth century was the context of evolutionary naturalism within which the conflict occurred.

77 The case for the theory of ‘group selection’ has been set out most forcibly by Wynne-Edwards, V. C. in his, Animal dispersion in relation to social behaviour, Edinburgh, 1962Google Scholar; and ‘Ecology and the evolution of social ethics’, in Pringle, J. W. S. (ed.), Biology and the human sciences, Oxford, 1972, pp. 4969.Google Scholar He has been opposed by a host of ‘Orthodox’ evolutionists who deny that organisms ever act in anything but a ‘selfish’ manner. See Williams, G. C. (ed.), Group selection, Chicago, 1971Google Scholar; and Dawkins, R., The selfish gene, Oxford, 1976Google Scholar, where the argument is presented for the layman.

78 Wallace, , ‘Sir Charles Lyell on geological climates and the origin of species’, The quarterly review, 1869, 126, 359–94 (393).Google Scholar This was a review of the 10th edition of the Principles of geology, where Lyell had finally given his blessing to the Darwinists. On this occasion, Darwin gained one ally but lost another.

79 Wallace, , Contributions to the theory of natural selection, London, 1870Google Scholar, reprinted in Natural selection and tropical nature, op. cit. (42), pp. 186214.Google Scholar

80 Ibid., pp. 199–200.

81 Ibid., p. 213.

82 See Kottler, , op. cit. (11)Google Scholar, and Smith, , op. cit. (19).Google Scholar

83 Wallace, , The scientific aspect of the supernatural, London, 1866, p. 9.Google Scholar

84 Wallace, to Darwin, , 18 04 1869Google Scholar, in Marchant, , op. cit. (4), i, 244.Google Scholar

85 Wallace, , ‘The development of human races under the law of natural selection’, in Natural selection and tropical nature, op. cit. (42), p. 185.Google Scholar In his otherwise excellent article on Wallace, Smith fails to distinguish this new ending from the original one of 1864, op. cit. (19), pp. 192–3. As a result, he does not recognize that Wallace's opinions on both spiritualism and sociology had undergone a profound change between 1864 and 1869.

86 Wallace, , op. cit. (83), p. 50.Google Scholar

87 Wallace, , op. cit. (79), p. 203.Google Scholar

88 Wallace, , op. cit. (83), p. 56.Google Scholar

89 See Wallace, , Man's place in the universe, London, 1903Google Scholar; and The world of life—a manifestation of creative power, directive mind and ultimate purpose, London, 1910.Google Scholar Some aspects of the eccentric cosmology which Wallace developed in later life are discussed by Heffernan, W. C., ‘The singularity of our inhabited world: William Whewell and A. R. Wallace in dissent’, Journal of the history of ideas, 1978, 39, 81100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

90 Henry George was the author of Progress and poverty: an inquiry into the cause of industrial depression and of the increase of want with the increase of wealth, New York, 1879.Google Scholar He recommended the introduction of a land tax as a preliminary to the achievement of an egalitarian society. Under George's influence Wallace, wrote Land nationalisation: its necessity and its aims, London, 1882Google Scholar, and several articles on a similar theme. See My life, op. cit. (20), ii, 235–74Google Scholar for Wallace's account of his involvement with the land nationalization movement.

91 Wallace's political experience during the 1880s was not at all unusual. This was a period of severe economic depression and widespread unemployment, during which the complacent liberalism of the political economists was found wanting. Henry George visited England in 1881 and received much support; two years later the Fabians came together; and a year after that the Marxist ‘Social Democratic Federation’ was formed. By the time the Independent Labour Party was formed in 1893, a great number of disillusioned tories, liberals, ‘single-taxers’ (followers of Henry George), etc., had been converted to socialism. See Semmel, , op. cit. (58)Google Scholar, chapter I; Lynd, H. M., England in the eighteen-eighties: towards a social basis for freedom, London, 1968Google Scholar, chapters III and IV; Lichtheim, G., A short history of socialism, London, 1975. PP. 169254.Google Scholar

92 Wallace, , op. cit. (20), ii, 209.Google Scholar Wallace made an even greater claim for this article later in his autobiography when he wrote, ‘This extension of the principle of natural selection as it acts in the animal world … is by far the most important of the new ideas I have given to the world’; ibid., ii, 389.

93 Wallace, , ‘Human selection’, Fortnightly review, 1890, 48, 325–37 (325).Google Scholar See also, ‘Human progress: past and future’, The arena, 1892, 26, 145–59.Google Scholar

94 Wallace had always admired Galton's work. In his review of Hereditary genius he had forecast that the book ‘will take rank as an important and valuable addition to the science of human nature’; Nature, 1870, 1, 502.Google Scholar In Darwinism, London, 1889Google Scholar, Wallace set out Weismann's theory of heredity and pointed out that it had been anticipated by Galton's ‘stirp’ theory. He wrote, ‘The names of Galton and Weismann should therefore be associated as discoverers of what may be considered (if finally established) the most important contribution to the theory of evolution since the appearance of the Origin of species’; p. 442 (n.).Google Scholar Wallace's willingness to accept lhe heredilarian outlook of these men must be interpreted in the context of his earlier acceplance of the hereditarian science of phrenology.

95 Wallace, , ‘Human selection’, op. cit. (93), p. 327.Google Scholar

96 Ibid., pp. 327–30.

97 Ibid., p. 330.

99 Ibid., p. 335.

100 There was an irony about Wallace's choice of the theory of sexual selection for human evolution. He was a prominent critic of Darwin's views on this subject and never accepted that sexual selection by female choice would work in the animal kingdom. However, his reasons were clear and consistent: he believed that animals did not possess the mental and moral faculties necessary for such a process. In contrasi, his view of the integrity of the human conscience enabled him to formulate a wildly optimistic theory of what this process might achieve in human society. See Wallace, , ‘The descent of man’, The academy, 1871, 2, 180–81Google Scholar; Marchant, , op. cit. (4), i, 157, 203, 212, 227, 298.Google Scholar

101 Wallace, , ‘Human selection’, op. cit. (93), pp. 333–5.Google Scholar

102 Ibid., p. 337.

103 Wallace, , ‘Evolution and character’, in Parker, P. (ed.), Character and life, London, 1912, pp. 350 (49–50).Google Scholar In this article Wallace described his theory of human selection asa process that acted, ‘not through struggle and death, but through brotherhood and love’ (p. 50).Google Scholar

104 Wallace, , op. cit. (20), p. 389.Google Scholar

105 This was quoted by the editor of The eagle and the serpent, 06 1898, p. 42.Google Scholar Wallace was generally approving in the next issue, too, writing, ‘Your last issue was excellent—I think the best yet’; 09 1898, p. 62.Google Scholar

106 On the front cover of the magazine there were a number of slogans such as, ‘A Race of Altruists is Necessarily a Race of Slaves’, ‘A Race of Freemen is Necessarily a Race of Egoists’, etc.

107 This phrase was used by Thomas Common, a leading exponent of Nietzsche's philosophy in England, in an article on ‘Darwinism in sociology’, The eagle and the serpent, 06 1898, pp. 40–2.Google Scholar

108 Wallace, , ‘Darwinism in sociology’, The eagle and the serpent, 09 1898, pp. 57–9.Google Scholar

109 Wallace, , The eagle and the serpent, 07 1900, p. 164.Google Scholar

110 Wallace, , The eagle and the serpent, 03 1901, p. 69.Google Scholar

111 See note 1 above.

112 Wallace, , op. cit. (2), p. 663.Google Scholar

113 Morgan, C. Lloyd to Wallace, , 8 02 1892Google Scholar, in the Wallace papers, British Museum MSS., 46436, ff. 263–4.

114 I have discussed Galton's pantheistic philosophy of nature at greater length in my PhD thesis, ‘The meaning of evolution: post-Darwinian debates on the significance for man of the theory of evolution, 1858–1908’, University of Cambridge, 1977, chapter III.

115 Wallace, , The world of life, op. cit. (89), p. 278.Google Scholar

116 For Galton, , see English mm of science: their nature and nurture, London, 1874, p. 260Google Scholar; for Wallace, see note 2 above.

117 See Spencer, , The study of sociology, 4th edn., London, 1875, pp. 400–1.Google Scholar

118 Darwin, , The descent of man, 2nd edn., London, 1874, p. 945.Google Scholar

119 Compare Huxley's essay on ‘Evolution and ethics’ (1893)Google Scholar with his earlier discussion of ‘The struggle for existence in human society’ (1888)Google Scholar, in Collected essays, 9 vols., London, 18931894, ixGoogle Scholar, especially 82–3, 211–12. A recent analysis which suggests that our conventional interpretation of Huxley's intentions in his Romanes Lecture is seriously amiss is, M. S. Helfand, Huxley, T. H.'s “Evolution and ethics”: The politics of evolution and the evolution of politics’, Victorian studies, 1977, 20, 159–77.Google Scholar

120 Wallace, , Social environment and moral progress, London, 1913, p. 149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar