QUOTES
FROM WALLACE’S WRITINGS
COMPILED BY GEORGE BECCALONI
These are some of my favorite quotes from Wallace's
published and unpublished writings. They provide an overview of his life and
work, as well as a sample of some of his best writing, and they have been
arranged to roughly reflect the chronology of the events to which they refer.
All have been carefully checked, but if you find any errors then please let me
know (blaberus1@ntlworld.com):
[Wallace, describing how he became
interested in botany whilst living near Neath, Wales in 1842...] "But
I soon found that by merely identifying the plants I found in my walks I lost
much time in gathering the same species several times, and even then not being
always quite sure that I had found the same plant before. I therefore began to
form a herbarium, collecting good specimens and drying them carefully between
drying papers and a couple of boards weighted with books or stones. My brother
[who was Wallace's employer], however, did not approve of my devotion to
this study, even though I had absolutely nothing else to do, nor did he suggest
any way in which I could employ my leisure more profitably. He said very little
to me on the subject beyond a casual remark, but a letter from my mother showed
me that he thought I was wasting my time. Neither he nor I could foresee that
it would have any effect on my future life, and I myself only looked upon it as
an intensely interesting occupation for time that would be otherwise wasted. Even
when we were busy I had Sundays perfectly free, and used then to take long
walks over the mountains with my collecting box, which I brought home full of
treasures. I first named the species as nearly as I could do so, and then laid
them out to be pressed and dried. At such times I experienced the joy which
every discovery of a new form of life gives to the lover of nature, almost
equal to those raptures which I afterwards felt at every capture of new
butterflies on the Amazon, or at the constant stream of new species of birds,
beetles, and butterflies in Borneo, the Moluccas, and the Aru Islands...
Now, I have some reason to believe that
this was the turning-point of my life, the tide that carried me on, not to
fortune but to whatever reputation I have acquired, and which has certainly
been to me a never-failing source of much health of body and supreme mental
enjoyment." (From Wallace's 1905 book My Life).
........................................................................................................
[Wallace, writing to his friend Henry
Walter Bates about evolution in the mid-1840's...] "'I
have rather a more favourable opinion of the 'Vestiges' than you appear to
have. I do not consider it a hasty generalization, but rather as an ingenious hypothesis
strongly supported by some striking facts and analogies, but which remains to
be proved by more facts and the additional light which more research may throw
upon the problem. It furnishes a subject for every observer of nature to attend
to; every fact he observes will make either for or against it, and it thus
serves both as an incitement to the collection of facts, and an object to which
they can be applied when collected...' [1845 letter]
'I begin to feel rather dissatisfied
with a mere local collection; little is to be learnt by it. I should like to
take some one family to study thoroughly, principally with a view to the theory
of the origin of species. By that means I am strongly of opinion that some
definite results might be arrived at...' [1847 letter]
These extracts from my early letters to
Bates suffice to show that the great problem of the origin of species was
already distinctly formulated in my mind; that I was not satisfied with the
more or less vague solutions at that time offered; that I believed the
conception of evolution through natural law so clearly formulated in the
"Vestiges" to be, so far as it went, a true one; and that I firmly
believed that a full and careful study of the facts of nature would ultimately
lead to a solution of the mystery." (From Wallace's 1905 book My Life).
........................................................................................................
[on the Amazon rainforest in Brazil...] "There
is, however, one natural feature of this country, the interest and grandeur of
which may be fully appreciated in a single walk: it is the "virgin
forest." Here no one who has any feeling of the magnificent and the
sublime can be disappointed; the sombre shade, scarce illumined by a single direct
ray even of the tropical sun, the enormous size and height of the trees, most
of which rise like huge columns a hundred feet or more without throwing out a
single branch, the strange buttresses around the base of some, the spiny or
furrowed stems of others, the curious and even extraordinary creepers and
climbers which wind around them, hanging in long festoons from branch to
branch, sometimes curling and twisting on the ground like great serpents, then
mounting to the very tops of the trees, thence throwing down roots and fibres
which hang waving in the air, or twisting round each other form ropes and
cables of every variety of size and often of the most perfect regularity.
These, and many other novel features-the parasitic plants growing on the trunks
and branches, the wonderful variety of the foliage, the strange fruits and
seeds that lie rotting on the ground-taken altogether surpass description, and
produce feelings in the beholder of admiration and awe. It is here, too, that
the rarest birds, the most lovely insects, and the most interesting mammals and
reptiles are to be found. Here lurk the jaguar and the boa-constrictor, and
here amid the densest shade the bell-bird tolls his peal." (From a
1849 letter from Wallace to the members of the Mechanics' Institution in Neath,
Wales published in Wallace's 1905 book My Life).
........................................................................................................
[Wallace, describing the sinking of his
ship on the way back to England from Brazil in a letter to his friend the
botanist Richard Spruce in 1852...]
"I cannot attempt to describe my
feelings and thoughts during these events. I was surprised to find myself very
cool and collected. I hardly thought it possible we should escape, and I
remember thinking it almost foolish to save my watch and the little money I had
at hand. However, after being in the boats some days I began to have more hope,
and regretted not having saved some new shoes, cloth coat and trousers, hat,
etc, which I might have done with a little trouble. My collections, however,
were in the hold, and were irretrievably lost. And now I began to think that
almost all the reward of my four years of privation and danger was lost. What I
had hitherto sent home had little more than paid my expenses, and what I had
with me in the Helen I estimated would have realized about £500. But
even all this might have gone with little regret had not by far the richest
part of my own private collection gone also. All my private collection of
insects and birds since I left Para was with me, and comprised hundreds of new
and beautiful species, which would have rendered (I had fondly hoped) my
cabinet, as far as regards American species, one of the finest in Europe. Fancy
your regrets had you lost all your Pyrenean mosses on your voyage home, or
should you now lose all your South American collection, and you will have some
idea of what I suffer. But besides this, I have lost a number of sketches,
drawings, notes, and observations on natural history, besides the three most
interesting years of my journal, the whole of which, unlike any pecuniary loss,
can never be replaced; so you will see that I have some need of philosophic
resignation to bear my fate with patience and equanimity." (From an
1852 letter from Wallace to Spruce published in Wallace's 1905 book My Life).
........................................................................................................
[on a typical day's fieldwork with his
assistant Charles Allen in 1854...]
"Singapore is rich in beetles, and
before I leave I think I shall have a beautiful collection of them. I will tell
you how my day is now occupied. Get up at half-past five, bath, and coffee. Sit
down to arrange and put away my insects of the day before, and set them in a
safe place to dry. Charles mends our insect-nets, fills our pin-cushions, and
gets ready for the day. Breakfast at eight; out to the jungle at nine. We have
to walk about a quarter mile up a steep hill to reach it, and arrive dripping
with perspiration. Then we wander about in the delightful shade along paths
made by the Chinese wood-cutters till two or three in the afternoon, generally
returning with fifty or sixty beetles, some very rare or beautiful, and perhaps
a few butterflies. Change clothes and sit down to kill and pin insects, Charles
doing the flies, wasps, and bugs; I do not trust him yet with beetles. Dinner
at four, then at work again till six: coffee. Then read or talk, or, if insects
very numerous, work again till eight or nine. Then to bed." (From
an 1854 letter from Wallace to his mother published in Wallace's 1905 book My
Life).
........................................................................................................
[on insect collecting in Simunjan,
Sarawak, Borneo...] "To give English
entomologists some idea of the collecting here, I will give a sketch of one
good day's work. Till breakfast I am occupied ticketing and noting the captures
of the previous day, examining boxes for ants, putting out drying-boxes and
setting the insects of any caught by lamp-light. About 10 o'clock I am ready to
start. My equipment is, a rug-net, large collecting-box hung by a strap over my
shoulder, a pair of pliers for Hymenoptera, two bottles with spirits, one large
and wide-mouthed for average Coleoptera, &c., the other very small for
minute and active insects, which are often lost by attempting to drop them into
a large mouthed bottle. These bottles are carried in pockets in my
hunting-shirt, and are attached by strings round my neck; the corks are each
secured to the bottle by a short string. The morning is fine, and thus equipped
I first walk to some dead trees close to the house frequented by Buprestidae.
As I approach I see the bright golden back of one, as he moves in sideway jerks
along a prostrate trunk,--I approach with caution, but before I can reach him,
whizz!--he is off, and flies humming round my head. After one or two circuits
he settles again in a place rendered impassable by sticks and bushes, and when
he leaves it, it is to fly off to some remote spot in the jungle. I then walk
off into the swamp along the path of logs and tree-trunks, picking my way
cautiously, now glancing right and left on the foliage...I now come to a bridge
of logs across a little stream; this is another favourite station of the
Buprestidae, particularly of the elegant Belionota sumptuosa. One of these is
now on the bridge,--he rises as I approach,-- flies with the rapidity of
lightning around me, and settles on the handle of my net! I watch him with quiet
admiration,--to attempt to catch him then is absurd; in a moment he is off
again, and then settles within a yard of me; I strike with all my force, he
rises at the same moment, and is now buzzing in my net, and in another instant
is transferred in safety to my bottle...In some distance now I walk on, looking
out carefully for whatever may appear; for near half-a-mile I see not an insect
worth capturing; then suddenly flies across the path a fine Longicorn, new to
me, and settles on a trunk a few yards off. I survey the soft brown mud between
us, look anxiously for some root to set my foot on, and then cautiously advance
towards him: one more step and I have him, but alas! My foot slips off the
root, down I go into the bog and the treasure escapes, perhaps a species I may
never obtain again." (From an 1855 letter from Wallace published in Zoologist
13: 4803-4807)
........................................................................................................
[on the delights of eating durian
fruit...] "When brought into a house the smell is often so
offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case
when I first tried it in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the
ground, and, eating it out-of-doors, I at once became a confirmed durion
eater...
[The] pulp is the eatable part, and its consistency and
flavour are indescribable. A rich butter-like custard highly flavoured with
almonds gives the best general idea of it, but intermingled with it come wafts
of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown-sherry, and other
incongruities. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which
nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid, nor
sweet, nor juicy; yet one feels the want of none of these qualities, for it is
perfect as it is. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you
eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat durions, is a new
sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience." (From
Wallace's 1869 book The Malay Archipelago).
........................................................................................................
[on dangerous fruits...] "Poets
and moralists, judging from our English trees and fruits, have thought that
there existed an inverse proportion between the size of the one and the other,
so that their fall should be harmless to man. Two of the most formidable fruits
known, however, the Brazil Nut (Bertholletia) and the Durian, grow on
lofty trees, from which they both fall as soon as they are ripe, and often
wound or kill those who seek to obtain them. From this we may learn two
things:—first, not to draw conclusions from a very partial view of Nature; and
secondly, that trees and fruits and all the varied productions of the animal
and vegetable kingdoms, have not been created solely for the use and
convenience of man." (From Wallace's 1856 article "On the
bamboo and durian of Borneo". Hooker's Journal of Botany 8(8):
225-230).
........................................................................................................
[on the capture of a new birdwing
butterfly (Ornithoptera croesus) on Bacan Island, Indonesia...] "The
beauty and brilliancy of this insect are indescribable, and none but a
naturalist can understand the intense excitement I experienced when I at length
captured it. On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings, my
heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt much
more like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate death. I
had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the excitement produced by
what will appear to most people a very inadequate cause." (From
Wallace's 1869 book The Malay Archipelago)
........................................................................................................
[on caring for a baby orang-utan whilst
living in Simunjan, Sarawak, Borneo...] "I must now tell you of the addition to
my household of an orphan baby...which I have nursed now more than a month...I
feed it four times a day, and wash it and brush its hair every day, which it
likes very much, only crying when it is hungry or dirty...I am afraid you would
call it an ugly baby, for it has a dark brown skin and red hair, a very large
mouth, but very pretty little hands and feet...It has powerful lungs, and
sometimes screams tremendously, so I hope it will live.
But I must now tell you how I came to
take charge of it. Don't be alarmed; I was the cause of its mother's death. It
happened as follows:-I was out shooting in the jungle and saw something up a
tree which I thought was a large monkey or orang-utan, so I fired at it, and
down fell this little baby-in its mother's arms...I have preserved her skin and
skeleton, and am trying to bring up her only daughter, and hope some day to
introduce her to fashionable society at the Zoological Gardens. When its poor
mother fell mortally wounded, the baby was plunged head over ears in a swamp
about the consistence of pea-soup, and when I got it out looked very pitiful.
It clung to me very hard when I carried it home, and having got its little
hands unawares into my beard, it clutched so tight that I had great difficulty
in extricating myself...From this short account you will see that my baby is no
common baby, and I can safely say, what so many have said before with much less
truth, 'There never was such a baby as my baby,' and I am sure nobody ever had
such a dear little duck of a darling of a little brown hairy baby before."
(From an 1855 letter from Wallace to his mother published in Wallace's 1905
book My Life).
........................................................................................................
[on the writing of Wallace's famous
'Sarawak Law' paper...] "Before
giving a general sketch of my life and work in less known parts of the
Archipelago, I must refer to an article I wrote while in Sarawak, which formed
my first contribution to the great question of the origin of species. It was
written during the wet season, while I was staying in a little house at the
mouth of the Sarawak river, at the foot of the Santubong mountain. I was quite
alone, with one Malay boy as cook, and during the evenings and wet days I had
nothing to do but to look over my books and ponder over the problem which was
rarely absent from my thoughts. Having always been interested in the
geographical distribution of animals and plants...and having now myself a vivid
impression of the fundamental differences between the Eastern and Western tropics;
and having also read through such books as Bonaparte's
"Conspectus,"...giving a mass of facts as to the distribution of
animals over the whole world, it occurred to me that these facts had never been
properly utilized as indications of the way in which species had come into
existence. The great work of Lyell had furnished me with the main features of
the succession of species in time, and by combining the two I thought that some
valuable conclusions might be reached. I accordingly put my facts and ideas on
paper, and the result seeming to me to be of some importance, I sent it to The
Annals and Magazine of Natural History, in which it appeared in the
following September (1855). Its title was "On the Law which has regulated
the Introduction of New Species," which law was briefly stated (at the
end) as follows: "Every species has come into existence coincident both
in space and time with a pre-existing closely-allied species." This
clearly pointed to some kind of evolution. It suggested the when and the
where of its occurrence, and that it could only be through natural
generation, as was also suggested in the "Vestiges "; but the how was
still a secret only to be penetrated some years later." (From
Wallace's 1905 book My Life).
........................................................................................................
[on the invisible line which would
later bear Wallace's name...] "In
this Archipelago there are two distinct faunas rigidly circumscribed, which
differ as much as those of South America and Africa, and more than those of
Europe and North America: yet there is nothing on the map or on the face of the
islands to mark their limits. The boundary line often passes between islands
closer than others in the same group. I believe the western part to be a
separated portion of continental Asia, the eastern the fragmentary prolongation
of a former Pacific continent. In mammalia and birds the distinction is marked
by genera, families, and even orders confined to one region; in insects
by a number of genera and little groups of peculiar species, the families
of insects having generally a universal distribution." (From an
1858 letter from Wallace to Henry Walter Bates published in James Marchant's
1916 book Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences).
........................................................................................................
[on Wallace's discovery of natural
selection...] "At the time in question [February 1858, on the
island of Gilolo in Indonesia] I was suffering from a sharp attack of
intermittent fever, and every day during the cold and succeeding hot fits had
to lie down for several hours, during which time I had nothing to do but to
think over any subjects then particularly interesting me. One day something
brought to my recollection Malthus's "Principles of Population,"
which I had read about twelve years before. I thought of his clear exposition
of "the positive checks to increase" - disease, accidents, war, and
famine - which keep down the population of savage races to so much lower an
average than that of more civilized peoples. It then occurred to me that these
causes or their equivalents are continually acting in the case of animals also;
and as animals usually breed much more rapidly than does mankind, the
destruction every year from these causes must be enormous in order to keep down
the numbers of each species, since they evidently do not increase regularly
from year to year, as otherwise the world would long ago have been densely
crowded with those that breed most quickly. 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
the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be
killed off and the superior would remain-that is, the fittest would
survive...
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. 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." (From Wallace's 1905 book My Life).
........................................................................................................
[on the factors which led both Wallace
and Darwin to independently discover natural selection...] "Why did so many of the greatest intellects
fail, while Darwin and myself hit upon the solution of this problem-a solution
which...proves to have been (and still to be) a satisfying one to a large
number of those best able to form a judgment on its merits?...
On a careful consideration, we find a
curious series of correspondences, both in mind and in environment, which led
Darwin and myself, alone among our contemporaries, to reach identically the
same theory.
First (and most important, as I
believe), in early life both Darwin and myself became ardent beetle-hunters.
Now there is certainly no group of organisms that so impresses the collector by
the almost infinite number of its specific forms, the endless modifications of
structure, shape, colour, and surface-markings that distinguish them from each
other, and their innumerable adaptations to diverse environments...
Again, both Darwin and myself had, what
he terms "the mere passion of collecting,"-not that of studying the
minutiæ of structure, either internal or external. I should describe it rather
as an intense interest in the mere variety of living things-the variety
that catches the eye of the observer even among those which are very much alike,
but which are soon found to differ in several distinct characters...
[W]hen, as in the case of Darwin and myself, the collectors were of a
speculative turn of mind, they were constantly led to think upon the
"why" and the "how" of all this wonderful variety in
nature-this overwhelming, and, at first sight, purposeless wealth of specific
forms among the very humblest forms of life.
Then, a little later (and with both of
us almost accidentally) we became travellers, collectors, and observers, in
some of the richest and most interesting portions of the earth; and we thus had
forced upon our attention all the strange phenomena of local and geographical
distribution, with the numerous problems to which they give rise. Thenceforward
our interest in the great mystery of how species came into existence was
intensified, and-again to use Darwin's expression-"haunted" us.
Finally, both Darwin and myself, at the
critical period when our minds were freshly stored with a considerable body of
personal observation and reflection bearing upon the problem to be solved, had
our attention directed to the system of positive checks as expounded by
Malthus in his 'Principles of Population.' The effect of this was analogous to
that of friction upon the specially-prepared match, producing that flash of
insight which led us immediately to the simple but universal law of the
"survival of the fittest," as the long-sought effective cause
of the continuous modification and adaptation of living things." (From
Wallace's acceptance speech on receiving the Darwin-Wallace Medal in 1908, in The
Darwin-Wallace Celebration Held on Thursday, 1st July 1908, by the Linnean
Society of London. 1909)
........................................................................................................
[on the beauty of a bird of
paradise...] "Thus one of my objects in coming to the far
East was accomplished. I had obtained a specimen of the King Bird of
Paradise...The remote island in which I found myself situated, in an almost
unvisited sea, far from the tracks of merchant-fleets and navies; the wild
luxuriant tropical forest, which stretched far away on every side; the rude
uncultured savages who gathered round me-all had their influence in determining
the emotions with which I gazed upon this "thing of beauty." I
thought of the long ages of the past, during which the successive generations
of this little creature had run their course-year by year of being born, and
living and dying amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent eye to
gaze upon their loveliness-to all appearance such a wanton waste of beauty.
Such ideas excite a feeling of melancholy. It seems sad that on the one hand
such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms
only in these wild inhospitable regions, doomed for ages yet to come to
hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand, should civilized man ever reach
these distant lands, and bring moral, intellectual, and physical light into the
recesses of these virgin forests, we may be sure that he will so disturbed the
nicely-balanced relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the
disappearance, and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful
structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy. This consideration
must surely tell us that all living things were not made for man. Many
of them have no relation to him. The cycle of their existence has gone on
independently of his, and is disturbed or broken by every advance in man's
intellectual development; and their happiness and enjoyment, their loves and
hates, their struggles for existence, their vigorous life and early death,
would seem to be immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation
alone, limited only by the equal well-being and perpetuation of the numberless
other organisms with which each is more or less intimately connected."
(From Wallace's 1869 book The Malay Archipelago).
........................................................................................................
[on the importance of collecting
natural history specimens...]
"It is for such inquiries that the modern naturalist collects his
materials; it is for this that he still wants to add to the apparently
boundless treasures of our national museums, and will never rest satisfied as
long as the native country, the geographical distribution, and the amount of
variation of any living thing remains imperfectly known. He looks upon every
species of animal and plant now living as the individual letters which go to
make up one of the volumes of our earth's history; and, as a few lost letters
may make a sentence unintelligible, so the extinction of numerous forms of life
which the progress of cultivation invariably entails will necessarily obscure
this invaluable record of the past. It is, therefore, an important object,
which governments and scientific institutions should immediately take steps to
secure, that in all tropical countries colonised by Europeans the most perfect
collections possible in every branch of natural history should be made and
deposited in national museums, where they may be available for study and
interpretation.
If this is not done, future ages will
certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as
to be blind to higher considerations. They will charge us with having culpably
allowed the destruction of some of those records of Creation which we had it in
our power to preserve; and while professing to regard every living thing as the
direct handiwork and best evidence of a Creator, yet, with a strange
inconsistency, seeing many of them perish irrecoverably from the face of the
earth, uncared for and unknown." (From Wallace's 1863 article On
the physical geography of the Malay Archipelago. Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society 33: 217-234).
........................................................................................................
[on the subject of religious belief...] "In
my early youth I heard, as ninety-nine-hundredths of the world do, only the
evidence on one side, and became impressed with a veneration for religion which
has left some traces even to this day. I have since heard and read much on both
sides, and pondered much upon the matter in all its bearings...I have since
wandered among men of many races and many religions. I have studied man, and
nature in all its aspects, and I have sought after truth. In my solitude I have
pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and
death. I think I have fairly heard and fairly weighed the evidence on both
sides, and I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider
the most sacred truths. I will pass over as utterly contemptible the
oft-repeated accusation that sceptics shut out evidence because they will not
be governed by the morality of Christianity. You I know will not believe that
in my case, and I know its falsehood as a general rule...To the mass of
mankind religion of some kind is a necessity. But whether there be a God and
whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever
may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the
study of nature and the search for truth, or believe that those will be better
off in a future state who have lived in the belief of doctrines inculcated from
childhood, and which are to them rather a matter of blind faith than
intelligent conviction." (From an 1861 letter from Wallace to his
brother-in-law Thomas Sims published in James Marchant's 1916 book Alfred
Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences).
........................................................................................................
[on eugenics...] "Why,
never by word or deed have I given the slightest countenance to eugenics.
Segregation of the unfit, indeed! It is a mere excuse for establishing a
medical tyranny. And we have enough of this kind of tyranny already. Even now,
the lunacy laws give dangerous powers to the medical fraternity. At the present
moment, there are some perfectly sane people incarcerated in lunatic asylums
simply for believing in spiritualism. The world does not want the eugenist to
set it straight. Give the people good conditions, improve their environment,
and all will tend towards the highest type. Eugenics is simply the meddlesome
interference of an arrogant, scientific priestcraft." (From an
interview with Wallace in 1912 - see http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S750.htm).
........................................................................................................
[on human avarice...] "The
struggle for wealth...ha[s] been accompanied by a reckless destruction
of the stored-up products of nature, which is even more deplorable because more
irretrievable. Not only have forest-growths of many hundreds of years been
cleared away, often with disastrous consequences, but the whole of the mineral
treasures of the earth's surface, the slow products of long-past eons of time
and geological change, have been and are still being exhausted, to an extent
never before approached, and probably not equalled in amount during the whole
preceding period of human history." (From Wallace's 1898 book The
Wonderful Century; Its Successes and Its Failures).
........................................................................................................
[on the evils of capitalism...] "This
variety and beauty, even the strangeness, the ugliness, and the unexpectedness
we find everywhere in nature, are, and therefore were intended to be, an
important factor in our mental development; for they excite in us admiration
wonder, and curiosity—the three emotions which stimulate first our attention,
then our determination to learn the how and the why, which are the basis of
observation and experiment and therefore of all science and all philosophy.
These considerations should lead us to look upon all the works of nature,
animate or inanimate, as invested with a certain sanctity, to be used by
us but not abused, and never to be recklessly destroyed or defaced. To
pollute a spring or a river, to exterminate a bird or beast, should be treated
as moral offences and as social crimes; while all who profess religion or
sincerely believe in the Deity—the designer and maker of this world and
of every living thing—should, one would have thought, have placed this
among the first of their forbidden sins, since to deface or destroy that which
has been brought into existence for the use and enjoyment, the education and
elevation of the human race, is a direct denial of the wisdom and goodness of
the Creator, about which they so loudly and persistently prate and preach.
Yet during the past century, which has
seen those great advances in the knowledge of Nature of which we are so
proud, there has been no corresponding development of a love or reverence for
her works; so that never before has there been such widespread ravage of the
earth's surface by destruction of native vegetation and with it of much animal
life, and such wholesale defacement of the earth by mineral workings and by
pouring into our streams and rivers the refuse of manufactories and of cities;
and this has been done by all the greatest nations claiming the first place for
civilisation and religion! And what is worse, the greater part of this waste
and devastation has been and is being carried on, not for any good or
worthy purpose, but in the interest of personal greed and avarice; so that in
every case, while wealth has increased in the hands of the few, millions are
still living without the bare necessaries for a healthy or a decent life, thousands
dying yearly of actual starvation, and other thousands being slowly or suddenly
destroyed by hideous diseases or accidents, directly caused in this cruel race
for wealth, and in almost every case easily preventable. Yet they are not
prevented, solely because to do so would somewhat diminish the profits of the
capitalists and legislators who are directly responsible for this almost
world-wide defacement and destruction, and virtual massacre of the ignorant and
defenceless workers.
The nineteenth century saw the rise, the
development, and the culmination of these crimes against God and man. Let us
hope that the twentieth century will see the rise of a truer religion, a purer
Christianity; that the conscience of our rulers will no longer permit a single
man, woman, or child to have its life shortened or destroyed by any preventable
cause, however profitable the present system may be to their employers; that no
one shall be allowed to accumulate wealth by the labour of others unless and
until every labourer shall have received sufficient, not only for a bare
subsistence, but for all the reasonable comforts and enjoyments
of life, including ample recreation and provision for a restful and happy old
age. Briefly, the support of the labourers without any injury to health or
shortening of life should be a first charge upon the products of labour.
Every kind of labour that will not bear this charge is immoral and is unworthy
of a civilised community." (From Wallace's 1910 book The World of Life).
For more quotes see http://www.iol.ie/~spice/quotes.htm
and http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/quotes.htm