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quotes from Wallace's published and unpublished writings.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