Introduction of New Species, in which he laid down the evolutionary conclusion that ‘every species has come into existence coincident both in time and space with a pre-existing closely-allied species’. He gradually became a convinced evolutionist; but it was not till 1858, during an attack of fever at Ternate, in the Moluccas, that the idea of natural selection as the solution of the method of evolution flashed upon him, and he thought it out in the course of a few hours. The next two days he spent in writing down his views and sending them to Darwin. Darwin was fourteen years his senior, and a man of established reputation, whereas Wallace was a young collector with his reputation still to make. The result, a monument to the natural generosity of both the great biologists, was the famous joint paper at the Linnaean Society on 1 July 1858, in which the modern theory of evolution was first given to the world. Darwin had been working privately on the identical theme for years, but insisted on this joint publication; while Wallace, who might have raised a technical claim to priority as having been the first to write out his views for publication, never dreamt of such a procedure [see Darwin, Charles Robert]. In 1860 he obtained a copy of the Origin of Species, and read it five or six times, ‘each time with increasing admiration’. He felt that Darwin had done the work as well as it could be done, and wrote to Bates to say how thankful he was that Darwin and not himself had been called upon to set forth the theory in detail. However, he later did great service to the cause of evolution by his lucid volume, Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection (1870).
Early in 1862 Wallace left Singapore for England, bringing with him the first birds of paradise to reach Europe alive. He again settled down in London to work out the huge private collections which remained in his hands, even after the rest had been sold to such good purpose that the money when invested brought him in about £300 a year. He gradually turned from purely systematic description to the broader problems of evolution and geographical distribution; and in 1869 published what is perhaps his most important book, the great work on The Malay Archipelago, a magnificent combination of interesting sketches of travel and vivid pictures of natural history, together with a discussion of the great generalizations of evolutionary biology.
In 1863 Wallace became engaged to be married, but, to his great pain, the lady broke off the match. In 1866 he married Mary, the eldest daughter of William Mitten, of Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, a botanist friend, and embarked upon a long and happy married life. They had two children, a son and a daughter.
During his two periods of life in London Wallace made many friends and acquaintances, scientific and otherwise, among whom were Darwin, Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall, Mivart, W. B. Carpenter, Herbert Spencer, Wheatstone, and Lecky. He also interested himself in various outstanding social questions, especially land nationalization. During the next few years he was a candidate for the posts of assistant secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, director of the Bethnal Green museum, and superintendent of Epping Forest, which had just been acquired for the public; but in every case without success. He was now in the prime of his powers, and in 1876 published another first-class work, The Geographical Distribution of Animals.
In 1871, seized with a desire for country life, Wallace had moved to Grays in Essex. But he was never long in one place. He moved again to Croydon in 1876, to Dorking in 1878, to Godalming in 1881, to Parkstone in 1889, and finally, in 1902, to Broadstone, near Wimborne. In the late 'seventies he had lost most of his money through speculation and very injudicious investments, but in 1881, largely through the influence of Darwin and Huxley, he was granted a Civil List pension of £200. In the same year he became president of the newly-formed Land Nationalization Society. In 1886 he spent nearly a year on a lecturing tour in the United States. On his return, stimulated by the success of a lecture on Darwin's views, he wrote the excellent semi-popular work entitled Darwinism, which was published in 1889.
For the next few years Wallace gave up public lecturing and devoted himself chiefly to the writing of articles on every kind of scientific and social subject. In 1898 he published The Wonderful Century, a resumé of human progress in the nineteenth century. Another work, entitled Man's Place in the Universe (1903), embodied his belief that life could have developed only once in the cosmos, a belief based upon the then generally accepted statement that the solar system was near the centre of the visible universe. In 1905 he published his autobiography, My Life, a very detailed two-volume work. He died at Broadstone, Dorset, 7 November 1913, aged ninety. Much of
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