Beginnings and Background
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Wallace's writings on natural selection take on a more interesting light when considered from the perspective of his background. It might be imagined that as a revered scientist, Wallace had a formal lifelong preparation for a scientific career; this is only partly true. His preparation was informal and fueled solely by a hobby-level love of the natural world. No matter what curve life threw his way, Wallace managed to bring along his habit of observing and collecting and to learn whatever was offered by those around him. Image of Horned Flies scanned from The Malay Archipelago, Alfred Russel Wallace. Drawn on wood by Robinson. |
In 1843 at the age of 14, Wallace became an apprentice surveyor to his brother. His possible career as a clockmaker ended when the man to who he was apprenticed moved to London. Surveying further enabled Wallace to spend time outdoors. Two of the themes that ran through his life were strengthened: the natural history and a reverence for plant and animal life. During this time he made many observations of the geology around him in the Welsh countryside. Wallace wrote, in My Life (Vol 1), of his life as a surveyor:
- "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 acquires, and which has certainly been to me a never-failing source of much health of body and supreme mental enjoyment."
At age 21, Wallace left the business of surveying and found himself teaching at the Collegiate School in Leicester. He used this opportunity to further educate himself in mathematics, ending with integral calculus which put him "at the end of his tether" as he wrote in My Life. He read Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America. This period of time was a catalyst in the direction Wallace's life would take, as it was here that he met H. W. Bates. Bates, while considered by some authors to be a mentor to Wallace, merely introduced him to beetle collecting and later accompanied him to the Amazon.
It was at Leicester that Wallace also read some of the works of Darwin and recorded in My Life:"I first read Darwin's Journal three or four years ago, and have lately re-read it. As the journal of a scientific traveler it is second only to Humbolt's Narrative; as a work of general interest, perhaps superior to it. He is an ardent admirer and most able supporter of Mr. Lyell's views. His style of writing I very much admire, so free from all labour, or egotism, yet so full of interest and original thought. " He read Malthus as well, and this strong influence emerged fourteen years later while writing from a sickbed in the Archipelago. At Liecester, Wallace was introduced to phrenology and mesmerism, and these interests stayed with him throughout his travels. According to Wallace in My Life, this year was to be of great importance:
- "But, as already stated, the events which formed a turning-point in my life were, first, my acquaintance with Bates, and through him deriving a taste for the wonders of insects-life, opening to me a new aspect of nature, and later on finding in him a companion without whom I might never have ventured on my journey to the Amazon. The other and equally important circumstance was my reading Malthus, without which work I should probably not have hit upon the theory of natural selection and obtained full credit for its independent discovery. My year spent at Leicester must, therefore, be considered as perhaps the most important in my early life."
from My Life , (Vol 1), p. 240.
Wallace taught for only a year before returning to Neath to take over the surveying business after the death of his brother. He experienced a good deal of success in surveying, and was convinced by the founder of a building he worked on, The Mechanics' Institute at Neath, to teach physics there for two years. Teaching allowed a great deal of free time for collecting. It was here that Wallace read the anonymously authored Vestiges of Creation, which became a topic in letters between Wallace and Bates. From a letter from Wallace to Bates, dated December 28, 1945, in My Life (Vol I) page 254:
- "I have rather a more favorable 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.... It furnishes a subject for every observer to attend to; every fact he observes will make either for or against it, and it thus serves as both an incitement to the collection of facts, and an object to which they can be applied when collected. "
Reading W. H. Edwards, A Voyage Up the Amazon convinced Wallace that South America would be a perfect place to explore and collect. He had saved some money from the surveying business, so he wrote Bates and plans for the journey were made. As he later wrote in My Life (Vol I) page 257:
- "the great problem of the origin of species was already distinctly formulated in my mind; that I was not satisfied with the lore 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 the letters to Bates in preparing for their voyage until ten years later in early 1855 while in Malaysia, Wallace apparently made no further mention of his ideas on the concept of the origin of species. In September 1855, Wallace's essay, "The Law which has Regulated the Introduction of Species" appeared in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History.
Wallace's voyage to the Malay Archipelago marks a period of transition for Wallace. His work until now had been that of collecting. He set off to on this visit with more sophisticated purposes in mind. Having regretted not keeping a more careful collection with focus while in the Amazon, for his expedition to the Malay Archipelago, Wallace chose to "...keep a complete set of certain groups from every island or distinct locality," for the purpose of working out a "geographical distribution of animals of the Archipelago, and throw some light on various other problems," perhaps the origin of species. (My Life Vol I).
| Wallace's work A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro is a chronological account of the Amazon journey. It details his interest in the Amazon basin's flora and fauna, as well as his interest in the life and customs of both people in the cities and the native tribes he encountered, and chronicles his observations as well as his thoughts and analyses of his observations. The influences of Wallace's travels to the Amazon on his work are summarized on the travel page. Drawing of a Female Orang-Utan by Wolf, from a photograph by Woodbury. Scanned from The Malay Archipelago, Alfred Russel Wallace. |
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Did the realization of the importance of the location of a collected specimen suggest to Wallace a possible explanation for the existence of apparently similar populations in different locations? It is likely he realized he was seeing the results of a population dividing, one group migrating perhaps across a barrier, with subsequent variation creating a new species. In Narrative, p. 58, he makes mention of his hypothesis that adaptation to conditions was a factor in a situation such as this.
- "In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and see that there must be some other principle regulating the infinitely varied form of animal life. It must strike every one, that the numbers birds and insects and different groups, having scarcely any resemblance to each other, which yet feed on the same food and inhabit the same localities, cannot have been so differently constructed and adorned for that purpose alone."
Wallace returned from the Amazon and published:
On the Monkeys of the Amazon
On the Insects Used for Food by the Indians of the Amazon
On the Rio Negro
On Some Fishes Allied to Gymnotus
On the Habits of the Butterflies of the Amazon Valley
Wallace had lost all of his collection from the Amazon, and nearly all his notes except for his drawings of fishes, a few journals and some of his notes, and his watch. He decided that another expedition might yield data to help solve the puzzle of the species problem.
Next page: A Tentative Explanation