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122-551: The great nineteenth-century naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace explored Nusantara , drawing attention to fundamental biological differences between the Australia-New Guinea region and Southeast Asia. The boundary between the Asian and Australian faunal regions consists of a zone of smaller islands bearing the name of Wallacea , in honor of the co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection . Wallace speculated that

244-560: A species sketch of his continuing work in May 1856. By February 1858, Wallace had been convinced by his biogeographical research in the Malay Archipelago that evolution was real. He later wrote in his autobiography that the problem was of how species change from one well-marked form to another. He stated that it was while he was in bed with a fever that he thought about Malthus's idea of positive checks on human population, and had

366-848: A 19-year-old apprentice builder. This was a stopgap measure until William, his oldest brother, was ready to take him on as an apprentice surveyor . While in London, Alfred attended lectures and read books at the London Mechanics Institute . Here he was exposed to the radical political ideas of the Welsh social reformer Robert Owen and of the English-born political theorist Thomas Paine . He left London in 1837 to live with William and work as his apprentice for six years. They moved repeatedly to different places in Mid-Wales. Then at

488-623: A Letter from C. DARWIN, Esq., to Prof. ASA GRAY, Boston, US, dated Down, September 5th, 1857. III. On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type. By ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE. The communication letter briefly describes the first two, and regarding Wallace's paper states that he sent to Darwin "with the expressed wish that it should be forwarded to Sir Charles Lyell, if Mr. Darwin thought it sufficiently novel and interesting. So highly did Mr. Darwin appreciate

610-635: A Malay named Ali as a general servant and cook, and spent the early 1855 wet season in a small Dyak house at the foot of Mount Santubong , overlooking a branch outlet of the Sarawak River . He read about species distribution, notes on Pictets 's Palaeontology, and wrote his "Sarawak Paper". In March he moved to the Simunjon coal-works, operated by the Borneo Company under Ludvig Verner Helms , and supplemented collecting by paying workers

732-445: A better short abstract!" While Wallace had not asked for publication, Darwin would, "of course, at once write and offer to send [it] to any journal" that Wallace chose. He sadly added that "all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed". Lyell's immediate response urged Darwin to publish his own ideas, and in his reply of 25 June Darwin agreed that he could point to his own Essay of 1844 which Hooker had read in 1847, and

854-447: A bird-skinner. With Ali as cook, they collected for two days on Bali , then from 17 June to 30 August on Lombok . In December 1856, Darwin had written to contacts worldwide to get specimens for his continuing research into variation under domestication . At Lombok's port city, Ampanam , Wallace wrote telling his agent, Stevens, about specimens shipped, including a domestic duck variety "for Mr. Darwin & he would perhaps also like

976-462: A book titled Natural Selection . Wallace collected specimens and corresponded with Darwin from Borneo. In December 1857, he wrote to ask if Darwin's book would delve into human origins, to which Darwin responded that "I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded with prejudices, though I fully admit that it is the highest & most interesting problem for the naturalist". He encouraged Wallace's theorising, saying "without speculation there

1098-490: A cent for each insect. A specimen of the previously unknown gliding tree frog Rhacophorus nigropalmatus (now called Wallace's flying frog ) came from a Chinese workman who told Wallace that it glided down. Local people also assisted with shooting orangutans . They spent time with Sir James, then in February 1856 Allen chose to stay on with the missionaries at Kuching. On reaching Singapore in May 1856, Wallace hired

1220-508: A clergyman to study the natural history of South America, an interest he had developed at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge . Influenced by Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology , he became an able geologist as well as collecting plant and animal specimens, and fossils of gigantic extinct mammals. By the return journey, he was connecting patterns of geographical and historical distribution, and starting to doubt

1342-534: A closely allied species" has come to be known as the "Sarawak Law", answering his own question in his paper on the monkeys of the Amazon basin. Although it does not mention possible mechanisms for evolution, this paper foreshadowed the momentous paper he would write three years later. The paper challenged Lyell's belief that species were immutable. Although Darwin had written to him in 1842 expressing support for transmutation, Lyell had continued to be strongly opposed to

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1464-811: A commission of 20% on sales plus 5% on despatching freight and remittances of money. In 1848, Wallace and Bates left for Brazil aboard the Mischief . They intended to collect insects and other animal specimens in the Amazon Rainforest for their private collections, selling the duplicates to museums and collectors back in Britain to fund the trip. Wallace hoped to gather evidence of the transmutation of species . Bates and he spent most of their first year collecting near Belém , then explored inland separately, occasionally meeting to discuss their findings. In 1849, they were briefly joined by another young explorer,

1586-473: A few specimens that had been shipped home. During this period, despite having lost almost all the notes from his South American expedition, he wrote six academic papers (including "On the Monkeys of the Amazon") and two books, Palm Trees of the Amazon and Their Uses and Travels on the Amazon . At the same time, he made connections with several other British naturalists. Bates and others were collecting in

1708-426: A largely overlooked passage from Wallace's essay (p.62), he says of the evolutionary principle : The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at

1830-412: A letter to Asa Gray of 1857 showing that he was still developing the ideas, "so that I could most truly say and prove that I take nothing from Wallace. I should be extremely glad now to publish a sketch of my general views in about a dozen pages or so. But I cannot persuade myself that I can do so honourably... I would far rather burn my whole book than that he or any man should think that I had behaved in

1952-527: A number of scholars. Shipping schedules show that, contrary to these accusations, Wallace's letter could not have been delivered earlier than the date shown in Darwin's letter to Lyell. After Wallace returned to England in 1862, he became one of the staunchest defenders of Darwin's On the Origin of Species . In an incident in 1863 that particularly pleased Darwin, Wallace published the short paper "Remarks on

2074-430: A paltry spirit", also requesting that Hooker be invited to give a second opinion. Darwin was overwrought by a deepening crisis of illness of his baby son Charles Waring Darwin , who died of scarlet fever on 28 June. On the morning of the 29th he acknowledged Hooker's letters, writing "I cannot think now", then that night he read the letters, and though "quite prostrated", got his servant to take to Hooker Wallace's essay,

2196-402: A steady deterioration of the family's financial position. Wallace's mother was from a middle-class family of Hertford , to which place his family moved when Wallace was five years old. He attended Hertford Grammar School until 1837, when he reached the age of 14, the normal leaving age for a pupil not going on to university. Wallace then moved to London to board with his older brother John,

2318-635: A villa in Sandown and Darwin pressed on, with the facts he felt necessary to support his "abstract" expanding far beyond the thirty pages Hooker had originally suggested. The paper, consisting of the letter and papers, was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 3 (20 August): 46–50. The paper consisted of a communication letter by Joseph Dalton Hooker and Charles Lyell dated 30 June 1858, giving information on

2440-801: A wide interval of country?" In February 1855, while working in Sarawak on the island of Borneo , Wallace wrote "On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species". The paper was published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History in September 1855. In this paper, he discussed observations of the geographic and geologic distribution of both living and fossil species, a field that became biogeography. His conclusion that "Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with

2562-523: A young woman whom, in his autobiography, he would only identify as Miss L. Miss L. was the daughter of Lewis Leslie who played chess with Wallace, but to Wallace's great dismay, she broke off the engagement. In 1866, Wallace married Annie Mitten. Wallace had been introduced to Mitten through the botanist Richard Spruce, who had befriended Wallace in Brazil and who was a friend of Annie Mitten's father, William Mitten , an expert on mosses. In 1872, Wallace built

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2684-576: Is a modern controversy about his nationality. Since he was born in Monmouthshire , some sources have considered him to be Welsh. Other historians have questioned this because neither of his parents were Welsh, his family only briefly lived in Monmouthshire, the Welsh people Wallace knew in his childhood considered him to be English, and because he consistently referred to himself as English rather than Welsh. One Wallace scholar has stated that

2806-475: Is no good & original observation", adding that "I go much further than you". Wallace wrote his paper On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type at Ternate in February 1858 and sent it to Darwin with a request to send it on to Lyell. Darwin received it on 18 June 1858, and wrote to Lyell that "your words have come true with a vengeance,... forestalled" and "If Wallace had my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made

2928-653: The Cambridge University Museum of Zoology , and described as of exceptional historical significance. In 1862, Wallace returned to Britain, where he moved in with his sister Fanny Sims and her husband Thomas. While recovering from his travels, Wallace organised his collections and gave numerous lectures about his adventures and discoveries to scientific societies such as the Zoological Society of London . Later that year, he visited Darwin at Down House , and became friendly with both Lyell and

3050-474: The Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858: On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type by Alfred Russel Wallace and an Extract from an unpublished Work on Species from Charles Darwin 's Essay of 1844. The article also includes an Abstract of a Letter from Darwin to Asa Gray , and an introductory letter by Joseph Dalton Hooker and Charles Lyell . The article

3172-722: The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) for support, proposing to again fund his exploring entirely from sale of duplicate collections. He later recalled that, while researching in the insect-room of the British Museum , he was introduced to Darwin and they "had a few minutes' conversation." After presenting a paper and a large map of the Rio Negro to the RGS, Wallace was elected a Fellow of the society on 27 February 1854. Free passage arranged on Royal Navy ships

3294-561: The Vale of Neath . Wallace's work on the survey was largely outdoors in the countryside, allowing him to indulge his new passion for collecting insects. Wallace persuaded his brother John to join him in starting another architecture and civil engineering firm. It carried out projects including the design of a building for the Neath Mechanics' Institute , founded in 1843. During this period, he exchanged letters with Bates about books. By

3416-439: The centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities". The cybernetician and anthropologist Gregory Bateson observed in the 1970s that, although writing it only as an example, Wallace had "probably said the most powerful thing that'd been said in the 19th Century". Bateson revisited the topic in his 1979 book Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity , and other scholars have continued to explore

3538-460: The coloration of animals and plants, and proposed alternative explanations for a number of cases Darwin had attributed to sexual selection. He revisited the topic at length in his 1889 book Darwinism . In 1890, he wrote a critical review in Nature of his friend Edward Bagnall Poulton 's The Colours of Animals which supported Darwin on sexual selection, attacking especially Poulton's claims on

3660-490: The jungle cock , which is often domesticated here & is doubtless one of the originals of the domestic breed of poultry." In the same letter, Wallace said birds from Bali and Lombok, divided by a narrow strait, "belong to two quite distinct zoological provinces, of which they form the extreme limits", Java, Borneo, Sumatra and Malacca , and Australia and the Moluccas . Stevens arranged publication of relevant paragraphs in

3782-468: The likelihood of life on other planets . He was one of the first scientists to write a serious exploration of whether there was life on Mars . Aside from scientific work, he was a social activist, critical of what he considered to be an unjust social and economic system in 19th-century Britain. His advocacy of spiritualism and his belief in a non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans strained his relationship with other scientists. He

Near Oceania - Misplaced Pages Continue

3904-495: The "aesthetic preferences of the insect world". On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection " On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection " is the title of a journal article, comprising and resulting from the joint presentation of two scientific papers to

4026-463: The 19th century, and has never been out of print. It was praised by scientists such as Darwin (to whom the book was dedicated), by Lyell, and by non-scientists such as the novelist Joseph Conrad . Conrad called the book his "favorite bedside companion" and used information from it for several of his novels, especially Lord Jim . A set of 80 bird skeletons Wallace collected in Indonesia are held in

4148-574: The 8th Duke of Argyll's book, The Reign of Law , which aimed to refute natural selection. After an 1870 meeting of the British Science Association , Wallace wrote to Darwin complaining that there were "no opponents left who know anything of natural history, so that there are none of the good discussions we used to have". Historians of science have noted that, while Darwin considered the ideas in Wallace's paper to be essentially

4270-542: The Amazon area, Wallace was more interested in new opportunities in the Malay Archipelago as demonstrated by the travel writings of Ida Laura Pfeiffer , and valuable insect specimens she collected which Stevens sold as her agent. In March 1853 Wallace wrote to Sir James Brooke , Rajah of Sarawak, who was then in London, and who arranged assistance in Sarawak for Wallace. In June Wallace wrote to Murchison at

4392-598: The Dell , a house of concrete, on land he leased in Grays in Essex, where he lived until 1876. The Wallaces had three children: Herbert (1867–1874), Violet (1869–1945), and William (1871–1951). In the late 1860s and 1870s, Wallace was very concerned about the financial security of his family. While he was in the Malay Archipelago, the sale of specimens had brought in a considerable amount of money, which had been carefully invested by

4514-550: The January 1857 issue of The Zoologist . After further investigation, the zoogeographical boundary eventually became known as the Wallace Line . Ali became Wallace's most trusted assistant, a skilled collector and researcher. Wallace collected and preserved the delicate insect specimens, while most of the birds were collected and prepared by his assistants; of those, Ali collected and prepared around 5000. While exploring

4636-526: The Malay archipelago, the Ternate essay was in a private letter. Darwin received the essay on 18 June 1858. Although the essay did not use Darwin's term "natural selection", it did outline the mechanics of an evolutionary divergence of species from similar ones due to environmental pressures. In this sense, it was very similar to the theory that Darwin had worked on for 20 years, but had yet to publish. Darwin sent

4758-710: The Rev. S. Haughton's Paper on the Bee's Cell, And on the Origin of Species". This rebutted a paper by a professor of geology at the University of Dublin that had sharply criticised Darwin's comments in the Origin on how hexagonal honey bee cells could have evolved through natural selection. An even longer defence was a 1867 article in the Quarterly Journal of Science called "Creation by Law". It reviewed George Campbell ,

4880-448: The UK on the brig Helen . After 25 days at sea, the ship's cargo caught fire, and the crew was forced to abandon ship. All the specimens Wallace had on the ship, mostly collected during the last, and most interesting, two years of his trip, were lost. He managed to save a few notes and pencil sketches, but little else. Wallace and the crew spent ten days in an open boat before being picked up by

5002-563: The agent who sold the specimens for Wallace. On his return to the UK, Wallace made a series of bad investments in railways and mines that squandered most of the money, and he found himself badly in need of the proceeds from the publication of The Malay Archipelago . Despite assistance from his friends, he was never able to secure a permanent salaried position such as a curatorship in a museum. To remain financially solvent, Wallace worked grading government examinations, wrote 25 papers for publication between 1872 and 1876 for various modest sums, and

Near Oceania - Misplaced Pages Continue

5124-434: The archipelago, Wallace refined his thoughts about evolution, and had his famous insight on natural selection . In 1858 he sent an article outlining his theory to Darwin; it was published, along with a description of Darwin's theory, that same year. Accounts of Wallace's studies and adventures were eventually published in 1869 as The Malay Archipelago . This became one of the most popular books of scientific exploration of

5246-434: The attention of Darwin who was then working out a strategy for presenting his theory. Darwin apparently mistook Wallace's meaning, writing "nothing very new ... Uses my simile of tree, [but] it seems all creation with him". However, he spelt out the details of Natural Selection to Lyell, who found the idea hard to accept but urged Darwin to publish to establish priority. On 14 May 1856 Darwin began what became his draft for

5368-557: The author of that great book on the 'Malay Archipelago'." ( Vol.1 , Vol.2 ) Some of Wallace's friends suggested that he be buried in Westminster Abbey , but his wife followed his wishes and had him buried in the small cemetery at Broadstone, Dorset . Several prominent British scientists formed a committee to have a medallion of Wallace placed in Westminster Abbey near where Darwin had been buried. The medallion

5490-558: The botanist Richard Spruce , along with Wallace's younger brother Herbert. Herbert soon left (dying two years later from yellow fever ), but Spruce, like Bates, would spend over ten years collecting in South America. Wallace spent four years charting the Rio Negro , collecting specimens and making notes on the peoples and languages he encountered as well as the geography, flora, and fauna. On 12 July 1852, Wallace embarked for

5612-408: The brig Jordeson , which was sailing from Cuba to London. The Jordeson 's provisions were strained by the unexpected passengers, but after a difficult passage on short rations, the ship reached its destination on 1 October 1852. The lost collection had been insured for £200 by Stevens. After his return to Britain, Wallace spent 18 months in London living on the insurance payment, and selling

5734-458: The case of animals also; and as animals usually breed much more quickly than does mankind, the destruction every year from these causes must be enormous to keep down the numbers of each species, since evidently they do not increase regularly from year to year, as otherwise the world would long ago have been crowded with those that breed most quickly. Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask

5856-523: The connection between natural selection and systems theory . Warning coloration was one of Wallace's contributions to the evolutionary biology of animal coloration . In 1867, Darwin wrote to Wallace about a problem in explaining how some caterpillars could have evolved conspicuous colour schemes. Darwin had come to believe that many conspicuous animal colour schemes were due to sexual selection, but he saw that this could not apply to caterpillars. Wallace responded that he and Bates had observed that many of

5978-435: The contents of which we had both of us been privy to for many years. On representing this to Mr. Darwin, he gave us permission to make what use we thought proper of his memoir, &c.; and in adopting our present course, of presenting it to the Linnean Society, we have explained to him that we are not solely considering the relative claims to priority of himself and his friend, but the interests of science generally". The paper

6100-407: The dangers and wastefulness of militarism . In an 1899 essay, he called for popular opinion to be rallied against warfare by showing people "that all modern wars are dynastic; that they are caused by the ambition, the interests, the jealousies, and the insatiable greed of power of their rulers, or of the great mercantile and financial classes which have power and influence over their rulers; and that

6222-461: The department of science on which they bear". Years later, Darwin could only recall one review; Professor Haughton of Dublin claimed that "all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old." Despite illness, Darwin pressed on with writing the "abstract" of his "big book" on Natural Selection ; this condensed version was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species . In

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6344-403: The destruction and waste of wars and arms races, the rise of the urban poor and the dangerous conditions in which they lived and worked, a harsh criminal justice system that failed to reform criminals, abuses in a mental health system based on privately owned sanatoriums, the environmental damage caused by capitalism, and the evils of European colonialism. Wallace continued his social activism for

6466-421: The dropping of, say, ten thousand bombs at midnight into an enemy's capital from an invisible flight of airships." In 1898, Wallace published The Wonderful Century: Its Successes and Its Failures , about developments in the 19th century. The first part of the book covered the major scientific and technical advances of the century; the second part covered what Wallace considered to be its social failures including

6588-588: The earliest purposive voyaging in human history. The terms Remote Oceania and Near Oceania were proposed by anthropologists Roger Green and Andrew Pawley in 1973. By their definition, Near Oceania consists of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands, with the exception of Santa Cruz Islands . They are designed to dispel the outdated categories of Melanesia , Micronesia , and Polynesia ; Near Oceania cuts right across

6710-464: The end of 1839, they moved to Kington, Herefordshire , near the Welsh border, before eventually settling at Neath in Wales. Between 1840 and 1843, Wallace worked as a land surveyor in the countryside of the west of England and Wales. The natural history of his surroundings aroused his interest; from 1841 he collected flowers and plants as an amateur botanist . One result of Wallace's early travels

6832-565: The end of 1845, Wallace was convinced by Robert Chambers 's anonymously published treatise on progressive development , Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation , but he found Bates was more critical. Wallace re-read Darwin's Journal , and on 11 April 1846 wrote "As the Journal of a scientific traveller, it is second only to Humboldt's 'Personal Narrative'—as a work of general interest, perhaps superior to it." William Jevons,

6954-538: The essay in 1847. After turning his attention to biology and completing eight years of work on barnacles, Darwin intensified work on his theory of species in 1854. Alfred Russel Wallace , a naturalist working in Borneo , had a paper on the "introduction" of species published in Annals and Magazine of Natural History . This made guarded comments about evolution, and in the spring of 1856 it was noticed by Lyell who drew it to

7076-425: The essay in a joint presentation together with unpublished writings which highlighted Darwin's priority. Wallace's essay was presented to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, along with excerpts from an essay which Darwin had disclosed privately to Hooker in 1847 and a letter Darwin had written to Asa Gray in 1857. Communication with Wallace in the far-off Malay Archipelago involved months of delay, so he

7198-461: The evolutionary hypothesis that closely related species should inhabit neighbouring territories. During his work in the Amazon basin, he came to realise that geographical barriers—such as the Amazon and its major tributaries—often separated the ranges of closely allied species. He included these observations in his 1853 paper "On the Monkeys of the Amazon". Near the end of the paper he asked the question, "Are very closely allied species ever separated by

7320-516: The faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line , which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia . He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species, and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography ", or more specifically of zoogeography . Wallace

7442-425: The first letter, dated 1 May 1857, Darwin commented that Wallace's letter of 10 October which he had recently received, as well as Wallace's paper "On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species" of 1855, showed that they thought alike, with similar conclusions, and said that he was preparing his own work for publication in about two years time. The second letter, dated 22 December 1857, said how glad he

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7564-584: The founder of the Neath institute, was impressed by Wallace and persuaded him to give lectures there on science and engineering. In the autumn of 1846, Wallace and his brother John purchased a cottage near Neath, where they lived with their mother and sister Fanny. Inspired by the chronicles of earlier and contemporary travelling naturalists, Wallace decided to travel abroad. He later wrote that Darwin's Journal and Humboldt's Personal Narrative were "the two works to whose inspiration I owe my determination to visit

7686-712: The funeral of his son, and Wallace was still in Borneo. The meeting was chaired by the president of the society, Thomas Bell , who had written up the description of Darwin's reptile specimens from the Beagle expedition. About thirty were present, including two unnamed guests from overseas, with many there to hear an obituary notice for the former president and botanist Robert Brown given by Lyell. Wallace's natural history agent Samuel Stevens happened to be present, while Darwin's friends there included William Benjamin Carpenter and

7808-418: The geologist William Henry Fitton . Amongst the others, Daniel Oliver and Arthur Henfry would later support evolution, while Cuthbert Collingwood became an opponent. George Bentham was persuaded by Hooker to step down so that the Darwin and Wallace papers were first on the agenda, followed by six other papers on botanical and zoological topics. Bell had introduced discussions at the end of meetings, but there

7930-437: The grounds that contemporary society was too corrupt and unjust to allow any reasonable determination of who was fit or unfit. In his 1890 article "Human Selection" he wrote, "Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most intelligent ..." He said, "The world does not want the eugenicist to set it straight," "Give the people good conditions, improve their environment, and all will tend towards

8052-501: The highest type. Eugenics is simply the meddlesome interference of an arrogant, scientific priestcraft." In 1898, Wallace wrote a paper advocating a pure paper money system, not backed by silver or gold , which impressed the economist Irving Fisher so much that he dedicated his 1920 book Stabilizing the Dollar to Wallace. Wallace wrote on other social and political topics, including in support of women's suffrage and repeatedly on

8174-608: The idea of natural selection. His autobiography says that he was on the island of Ternate at the time; but the evidence of his journal suggests that he was in fact on the island of Gilolo . From 1858 to 1861, he rented a house on Ternate from the Dutchman Maarten Dirk van Renesse van Duivenbode , which he used as a base for expeditions to other islands such as Gilolo. Wallace describes how he discovered natural selection as follows: It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are continually acting in

8296-435: The idea of the transmutation of species in part because he was always inclined to favour radical ideas in politics, religion and science, and because he was unusually open to marginal, even fringe, ideas in science. Wallace was profoundly influenced by Robert Chambers 's Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation , a controversial work of popular science published anonymously in 1844. It advocated an evolutionary origin for

8418-412: The idea. Around the start of 1856, he told Darwin about Wallace's paper, as did Edward Blyth who thought it "Good! Upon the whole! ... Wallace has, I think put the matter well; and according to his theory the various domestic races of animals have been fairly developed into species ." Despite this hint, Darwin mistook Wallace's conclusion for the progressive creationism of the time, writing that it

8540-620: The interests of science that a selection from them should be laid before the Linnean Society. Taken in the order of their dates, they consist of:— I. Extract from an unpublished Work on Species, by C. DARWIN, Esq., consisting of a portion of a Chapter entitled, "On the Variation of Organic Beings in a state of Nature; on the Natural Means of Selection; on the Comparison of Domestic Races and true Species." II. Abstract of

8662-468: The journal Zoologist . He befriended Wallace and started him collecting insects. When Wallace's brother William died in March 1845, Wallace left his teaching position to assume control of his brother's firm in Neath, but his brother John and he were unable to make the business work. After a few months, he found work as a civil engineer for a nearby firm that was working on a survey for a proposed railway in

8784-664: The key to understanding these differences would lie in "now-submerged lands, uniting islands to continents" (1895). We now know that at several intervals during the Pleistocene , the sea surface was 130 metres below the current sea level. At these times New Guinea, Tasmania , the Aru Islands , and some smaller islands were joined to the Australian mainland . Biogeographers call this enlarged Greater Australian continent Sahul (Ballard, 1993) or Meganesia . West of Wallacea,

8906-497: The letter to Asa Gray and the Essay of 1844, leaving matters in the hands of Lyell and Hooker. Lyell and Hooker had decided on a joint publication at the Linnean Society of London of Wallace's paper together with an extract from Darwin's essay and his letter to Asa Gray . The last meeting of the society before the summer recess had been postponed following the death of former president the botanist Robert Brown on 10 June 1858, and

9028-405: The manuscript to Charles Lyell with a letter saying "he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters ... he does not say he wishes me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write and offer to send to any journal." Distraught about the illness of his baby son, Darwin put the problem to Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker , who decided to publish

9150-644: The most reasonable interpretation is therefore that he was an Englishman born in Wales. In 1843 Wallace's father died, and a decline in demand for surveying meant William's business no longer had work available. For a short time Wallace was unemployed, then early in 1844 he was engaged by the Collegiate School in Leicester to teach drawing, mapmaking, and surveying. He had already read George Combe 's The Constitution of Man , and after Spencer Hall lectured on mesmerism , Wallace as well as some of

9272-430: The most spectacular butterflies had a peculiar odour and taste, and that he had been told by John Jenner Weir that birds would not eat a certain kind of common white moth because they found it unpalatable. Since the moth was as conspicuous at dusk as a coloured caterpillar in daylight, it seemed likely that the conspicuous colours served as a warning to predators and thus could have evolved through natural selection. Darwin

9394-525: The negative impact they had on working-class people. In 1889, Wallace read Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy and declared himself a socialist, despite his earlier foray as a speculative investor. After reading Progress and Poverty , the bestselling book by the progressive land reformist Henry George , Wallace described it as "Undoubtedly the most remarkable and important book of the present century." Wallace opposed eugenics , an idea supported by other prominent 19th-century evolutionary thinkers, on

9516-599: The north and east of New Guinea, the islands of Near Oceania (the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomons) were likewise never connected to Sahul by dry land, for deep-water trenches also separate these from the Australian continental shelf . It seems that human colonization of this region was most likely effected during the interval between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, although some researchers would push

9638-400: The old categories are still used in science, popular culture and general usage. Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist , explorer, geographer , anthropologist , biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection ; his 1858 paper on

9760-404: The old category of Melanesia, which has shown to be not a useful category in respect to the geography, culture, language and human history of the region. The old categories have been in use since they were proposed by French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville in the mid-19th century. Though the push of some people in academia has been to replace the categories with Green's terms since the early 1990s,

9882-518: The old school to enter the lists before armouring." Although Bell apparently disapproved, the Vice-President promptly removed all references to immutability from his own paper which was awaiting publication. Darwin wrote to Wallace to explain what had occurred, enclosing a letter which Hooker wrote at Darwin's request. His next action was to get his family away from the danger of infection, both himself and Emma exhausted by sickening fear about

10004-611: The older pupils tried it out. Wallace spent many hours at the town library in Leicester; he read An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus , Alexander von Humboldt 's Personal Narrative , Darwin's Journal ( The Voyage of the Beagle ), and Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology . One evening Wallace met the entomologist Henry Bates , who was 19 years old, and had published an 1843 paper on beetles in

10126-419: The paper "English and American Flowers". He met many other prominent American naturalists and viewed their collections. His 1889 book Darwinism used information he collected on his American trip and information he had compiled for the lectures. On 7 November 1913, Wallace died at home, aged 90, in the country house he called Old Orchard, which he had built a decade earlier. His death was widely reported in

10248-418: The philosopher Herbert Spencer . During the 1860s, Wallace wrote papers and gave lectures defending natural selection. He corresponded with Darwin about topics including sexual selection , warning coloration , and the possible effect of natural selection on hybridisation and the divergence of species. In 1865, he began investigating spiritualism. After a year of courtship, Wallace became engaged in 1864 to

10370-429: The position of co-discoverer, and he was not the social equal of Darwin or the other prominent British natural scientists. All the same, the joint reading of their papers on natural selection associated Wallace with the more famous Darwin. This, combined with Darwin's (as well as Hooker's and Lyell's) advocacy on his behalf, would give Wallace greater access to the highest levels of the scientific community. The reaction to

10492-489: The possible dates earlier. But the key point is that even when the oceans were at their lowest levels, there were always significant open-water gaps between the islands of Wallacea, and therefore, the arrival of humans into Sahul, necessitated over-water transport. This was also the case of the expansion of humans beyond New Guinea into the archipelagoes of Near Oceania. Herein lies one of the most exciting and intriguing aspects of Pacific prehistory: that we are likely dealing with

10614-401: The press. The New York Times called him "the last of the giants [belonging] to that wonderful group of intellectuals composed of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Lyell, Owen, and other scientists, whose daring investigations revolutionized and evolutionized the thought of the century". Another commentator in the same edition said: "No apology need be made for the few literary or scientific follies of

10736-460: The question, why do some die and some live? And the answer was clearly, on the whole the best fitted live ... and considering the amount of individual variation that my experience as a collector had shown me to exist, then it followed that all the changes necessary for the adaptation of the species to the changing conditions would be brought about ... In this way every part of an animals organization could be modified exactly as required, and in

10858-433: The reading was muted, with the president of the Linnean Society remarking in May 1859 that the year had not been marked by any striking discoveries; but, with Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species later in 1859, its significance became apparent. When Wallace returned to the UK, he met Darwin. Although some of Wallace's opinions in the ensuing years would test Darwin's patience, they remained on friendly terms for

10980-425: The rest of Darwin's life. Over the years, a few people have questioned this version of events. In the early 1980s, two books, one by Arnold Brackman and another by John Langdon Brooks , suggested not only that there had been a conspiracy to rob Wallace of his proper credit, but that Darwin had actually stolen a key idea from Wallace to finish his own theory. These claims have been examined and found unconvincing by

11102-534: The rest of his life, publishing the book The Revolt of Democracy just weeks before his death. In 1880, he published Island Life as a sequel to The Geographic Distribution of Animals . In November 1886, Wallace began a ten-month trip to the United States to give a series of popular lectures. Most of the lectures were on Darwinism (evolution through natural selection), but he also gave speeches on biogeography , spiritualism, and socio-economic reform. During

11224-503: The results of war are never good for the people, who yet bear all its burthens (burdens)". In a letter published by the Daily Mail in 1909, with aviation in its infancy, he advocated an international treaty to ban the military use of aircraft, arguing against the idea "that this new horror is 'inevitable', and that all we can do is to be sure and be in the front rank of the aerial assassins—for surely no other term can so fitly describe

11346-625: The safety of their children. The day after the funeral they moved to his sister-in-law's in Sussex , then on to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight . At first they stayed in the King's Hotel, Shanklin , and on 30 July Darwin began writing an "abstract" of his book on Natural Selection , planning a short paper in response to Hooker's urging to publish a scientific paper in the Linnean journal. They next rented

11468-533: The same as his own, there were differences. Darwin emphasised competition between individuals of the same species to survive and reproduce, whereas Wallace emphasised environmental pressures on varieties and species forcing them to become adapted to their local conditions, leading populations in different locations to diverge. The historian of science Peter J. Bowler has suggested that in the paper he mailed to Darwin, Wallace might have been discussing group selection . Against this, Malcolm Kottler showed that Wallace

11590-455: The same very ingenious theory to account for the appearance and perpetuation of varieties and of specific forms on our planet, and both fairly claim the merit of being original thinkers in this important line of inquiry; but neither of them having published his views, though Mr. Darwin has for many years past been repeatedly urged by us to do so, and both authors having now unreservedly placed their papers in our hands, we think it would best promote

11712-438: The solar system, the earth, and living things. Wallace wrote to Henry Bates in 1845 describing it as "an ingenious hypothesis strongly supported by some striking facts and analogies, but which remains to be proven by ... more research". In 1847, he wrote to Bates that he would "like to take some one family [of beetles] to study thoroughly, ... with a view to the theory of the origin of species." Wallace planned fieldwork to test

11834-417: The stability of Species. In September 1838 he conceived his theory of natural selection as the cause of evolution , then as well as developing his career as a geologist and writer worked privately on finding evidence and answering possible objections. He wrote out his ideas in an 1842 "pencil sketch", then in an essay written in 1844. He discussed transmutation with his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker , who read

11956-488: The subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin 's earlier writings on the topic. It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting and quickly write an abstract of it, which was published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species . Wallace did extensive fieldwork, starting in the Amazon River basin . He then did fieldwork in the Malay Archipelago , where he identified

12078-630: The three sections of the papers. The introduction is shown below, along with the section headings: MY DEAR SIR,—The accompanying papers, which we have the honour of communicating to the Linnean Society, and which all related to the same subject, viz. the Laws which affect the Production of Varieties, Races, and Species, contain the results of the investigations of two indefatigable naturalists, Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. Alfred Wallace. The gentlemen having, independently and unknown to one another, conceived

12200-604: The trip, he was reunited with his brother John who had emigrated to California years before. He spent a week in Colorado, with the American botanist Alice Eastwood as his guide, exploring the flora of the Rocky Mountains and gathering evidence that would lead him to a theory on how glaciation might explain certain commonalities between the mountain flora of Europe, Asia and North America, which he published in 1891 in

12322-416: The tropics as a collector." After reading A voyage up the river Amazon, by William Henry Edwards , Wallace and Bates estimated that by collecting and selling natural history specimens such as birds and insects they could meet their costs, with the prospect of good profits. They therefore engaged as their agent Samuel Stevens who would advertise and arrange sales to institutions and private collectors, for

12444-555: The value of the views therein set forth, that he proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. Wallace's consent to allow the Essay to be published as soon as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided Mr. Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was strongly inclined to do (in favour of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which he had himself written on the same subject, and which, as before stated, one of us had perused in 1844, and

12566-613: The vast Sunda Shelf was also exposed as dry land, greatly extending the Southeast Asian mainland to include the Greater Sunda Islands of Sundaland . However, the islands of Wallacea (primarily Sulawesi , Ambon , Ceram , Halmahera , and the Lesser Sunda Islands ) always remained an island world, imposing a barrier to the dispersal of terrestrial vertebrates , including early hominids . To

12688-451: The very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure soon to follow. The cybernetician and anthropologist Gregory Bateson would observe in the 1970s that, although seeing it only as an illustration, Wallace had "probably said the most powerful thing that’d been said in the 19th century". Bateson revisited the topic in his 1979 book Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity , and other scholars have continued to explore

12810-407: The very process of this modification the unmodified would die out, and thus the definite characters and the clear isolation of each new species would be explained. Wallace had once briefly met Darwin, and was one of the correspondents whose observations Darwin used to support his own theories. Although Wallace's first letter to Darwin has been lost, Wallace carefully kept the letters he received. In

12932-405: The £200 annual pension was awarded in 1881, it helped to stabilise Wallace's financial position by supplementing the income from his writings. In 1881, Wallace was elected as the first president of the newly formed Land Nationalisation Society. In the next year, he published a book, Land Nationalisation; Its Necessity and Its Aims , on the subject. He criticised the UK's free trade policies for

13054-518: Was "nothing very new ... Uses my simile of tree [but] it seems all creation with him." Lyell was more impressed, and opened a notebook on species in which he grappled with the consequences, particularly for human ancestry. Darwin had already shown his theory to their mutual friend Joseph Hooker and now, for the first time spelt out the full details of natural selection to Lyell. Although Lyell could not agree, he urged Darwin to publish to establish priority. Darwin demurred at first, but began writing up

13176-756: Was 125,660 specimens, most of which were insects including more than 83,000 beetles, Several thousand of the specimens represented species new to science, Overall, more than thirty men worked for him at some stage as full-time paid collectors. He also hired guides, porters, cooks and boat crews, so well over 100 individuals worked for him. After collecting expeditions to Bukit Timah Hill in Singapore, and to Malacca , Wallace and Allen reached Sarawak in October 1854, and were welcomed at Kuching by Sir James Brooke's (then) heir Captain John Brooke . Wallace hired

13298-498: Was impressed by the idea. At a later meeting of the Entomological Society, Wallace asked for any evidence anyone might have on the topic. In 1869, Weir published data from experiments and observations involving brightly coloured caterpillars that supported Wallace's idea. Wallace attributed less importance than Darwin to sexual selection. In his 1878 book Tropical Nature and Other Essays , he wrote extensively about

13420-418: Was indeed discussing individual variation and selection. Others have noted that Wallace appeared to have envisioned natural selection as a kind of feedback mechanism that kept species and varieties adapted to their environment (now called 'stabilizing", as opposed to 'directional' selection). They point to a largely overlooked passage of Wallace's famous 1858 paper, in which he likened "this principle ... [to]

13542-487: Was no discussion of natural selection, perhaps because of the amount of business that had been dealt with, or possibly due to polite reluctance to speak out against a theory which the eminent Lyell and Hooker were supporting. Bentham noted that the audience appeared fatigued. Hooker later said there was "no semblance of a discussion", though "it was talked over with bated breath" at tea afterwards, and in his reminiscences many years later thought "the subject [was] too ominous for

13664-410: Was not part of this rapid publication. Wallace accepted the arrangement after the fact, happy that he had been included at all, and never expressed bitterness in public or in private. Darwin's social and scientific status was far greater than Wallace's, and it was unlikely that, without Darwin, Wallace's views on evolution would have been taken seriously. Lyell and Hooker's arrangement relegated Wallace to

13786-576: Was one of the first prominent scientists to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity . He wrote prolifically on both scientific and social issues; his account of his adventures and observations during his explorations in Southeast Asia, The Malay Archipelago , was first published in 1869. It continues to be both popular and highly regarded. Alfred Russel Wallace was born on 8 January 1823 in Llanbadoc , Monmouthshire. He

13908-462: Was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century, working on warning coloration in animals and reinforcement (sometimes known as the Wallace effect), a way that natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridisation . Wallace's 1904 book Man's Place in the Universe was the first serious attempt by a biologist to evaluate

14030-401: Was paid by Lyell and Darwin to help edit some of their works. In 1876, Wallace needed a £500 advance from the publisher of The Geographical Distribution of Animals to avoid having to sell some of his personal property. Darwin was very aware of Wallace's financial difficulties and lobbied long and hard to get Wallace awarded a government pension for his lifetime contributions to science. When

14152-476: Was reprinted and reviewed in several magazines including The Zoologist , whose judgement was "on asking myself, 'What does all this prove?' the only answer I could make was, 'A possibility'." It was commented on in some reviews and letters. The Linnean Society President Thomas Bell in his presidential report of May 1859 wrote that "The year which has passed has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak,

14274-857: Was stalled by the Crimean War , but eventually the RGS funded first class travel by P&O steamships. Wallace and a young assistant, Charles Allen, embarked at Southampton on 4 March 1854. After the overland journey to Suez and another change of ship at Ceylon they disembarked at Singapore on 19 April 1854. From 1854 to 1862, Wallace travelled around the islands of the Malay Archipelago or East Indies (now Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia). His main objective "was to obtain specimens of natural history, both for my private collection and to supply duplicates to museums and amateurs". In addition to Allen, he "generally employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay servants" as assistants, and paid large numbers of local people at various places to bring specimens. His total

14396-512: Was that Wallace was theorising about distribution, adding that "without speculation there is no good and original observation" but commented that "I believe I go much further than you". Wallace believed this and sent Darwin his February 1858 essay, " On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type ", asking Darwin to review it and pass it to Charles Lyell if he thought it worthwhile. Although Wallace had sent several articles for journal publication during his travels through

14518-533: Was the eighth of nine children born to Mary Anne Wallace ( née  Greenell ) and Thomas Vere Wallace. His mother was English, while his father was of Scottish ancestry. His family claimed a connection to William Wallace , a leader of Scottish forces during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 13th century. Wallace's father graduated in law but never practised it. He owned some income-generating property, but bad investments and failed business ventures resulted in

14640-499: Was the first announcement of the Darwin–Wallace theory of evolution by natural selection ; and appeared in print on 20 August 1858. The presentation of the papers spurred Darwin to write a condensed "abstract" of his "big book", Natural Selection . This was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species . On the voyage of the Beagle the young Charles Darwin took a break between graduating and starting his career as

14762-491: Was to be held on 1 July. On the afternoon of 30 June Mrs. Hooker copied out extracts from the handwritten documents they had just received from Darwin, then that evening Lyell and Hooker handed them in to the secretary with a covering letter. The papers were read to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, by the Secretary John Joseph Bennett . Neither author was present. Darwin was attending

14884-613: Was unveiled on 1 November 1915. Wallace began his career as a travelling naturalist who already believed in the transmutation of species. The concept had been advocated by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire , Erasmus Darwin , and Robert Grant , among others. It was widely discussed, but not generally accepted by leading naturalists, and was considered to have radical , even revolutionary connotations. Prominent anatomists and geologists such as Georges Cuvier , Richard Owen , Adam Sedgwick , and Lyell attacked transmutation vigorously. It has been suggested that Wallace accepted

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