Part 3

The distinctive features of the later development of the theory in Wallace’s mind were his more implicit faith in selection, his insistence on utility or selection value of new or varying characters, his flat rejection of Lamarckism, his reliance on spontaneous variations as supplying all the materials for selection. This confidence appears in the following passages from his militant reply in the volume of 1889 to the critics of Darwinism:

The right or favorable variations are so frequently present that the unerring power of natural selection never wants materials to work upon.... Weismann’s theory ... adds greatly to the importance of natural selection as the one invariable and ever-present factor in all organic change and that which can alone have produced the temporary fixity combined with the secular modification of species.

The principle of discontinuity is less clearly brought out than in the first sketch of 1858; the selection of fluctuation is favorably considered. The laws and causes of variation are, however, assumed rather than taken up as a subject of inquiry. These opinions of 1889 were the summation of twenty-nine years of work.

To return to the life-narrative, the autumn of 1860 found Wallace in the Moluccas reading the “Origin of Species” through five or six times, each time with increasing admiration. A letter of September 1 to his friend George Silk contains the key to the subsequent direction of his research, namely, his recognition of the vast breadth of Darwin’s principles and his determination to devote his life to their exposition:

I could _never have approached_ the completeness of his book, its vast accumulation of evidence, its overwhelming argument, and its admirable tone and spirit. I really feel thankful that it has _not_ been left to me to give the theory to the world. Mr. Darwin has created a new science and a new philosophy; and I believe that never has such a complete illustration of a new branch of human knowledge been due to the labors and researches of a single man. Never have such vast masses of widely scattered and hitherto quite unconnected facts been combined into a system and brought to bear upon the establishment of such a grand and new and simple philosophy.

The discovery of “Natural Selection” again turned the course of Wallace’s life. In his autobiography he writes:

I had, in fact, been bitten with the passion for species and their description, and if neither Darwin nor myself had hit upon “natural selection,” I might have spent the best years of my life in this comparatively profitless work, but the new ideas swept all this away.... This outline of the paper will perhaps enable my readers to understand the intense interest I felt in working out all these strange phenomena, and showing how they could almost all be explained by that law of “Natural Selection” which Darwin had discovered many years before, and which I also had been so fortunate as to hit upon.

The coloring of animals as observed in the tropics and the Malayan Islands was the subject in which Wallace made his most extensive and original contributions to Darwinism. In his sketch of 1858 he wrote:

Even the peculiar colors of many animals, especially insects, so closely resembling the soil or the leaves or the trunks on which they habitually reside, are explained on the same principle; for though in the course of ages varieties of many tints may have occurred, _yet those races having colors best adapted to concealment from their enemies would inevitably survive the longest_.

Returning from the Archipelago in 1862, he published in 1864 his pioneer paper, “The Malayan Papilionidæ or Swallow-tailed Butterflies, as illustrative of the Theory of Natural Selection,” in which he at once took rank beside Bates and Müller as one of the great contributors to the color characteristics of animals. We see him step by step developing the ideas of protective resemblance which he had fully discussed with Bates, of alluring and warning colors, and of mimicry, pointing out the prevalence of mimicry in the female rather than in the male. The whole series of phenomena is believed to depend upon the great principle of the utility of every character, upon the need of color protection by almost all animals, and upon the known fact that no characteristic is so variable as color, that, therefore, concealment is most easily obtained by color modification. Protective resemblance in all its manifold forms has ever been dominant in his mind as a greater principle than that of the sexual selection of color which Darwin favored.

Here may be cited Wallace’s own account of his famous observation of mimicry in the leaf butterfly from his volume of 1869, “The Malay Archipelago”:

The other species to which I have to direct attention is the _Kallima paralekta_, a butterfly of the same family group as our Purple Emperor, and of about the same size or larger. Its upper surface is of a rich purple, variously tinged with ash color, and across the fore wings there is a broad bar of deep orange, so that when on the wing it is very conspicuous. This species was not uncommon in dry woods and thickets, and I often endeavored to capture it without success, for after flying a short distance it would enter a bush among dry or dead leaves, and however carefully I crept up to the spot I could never discover it till it would suddenly start out again and then disappear in a similar place. At length I was fortunate enough to see the exact spot where the butterfly settled, and though I lost sight of it for some time, I at length discovered that it was close before my eyes, but that in its position of repose it so closely resembled a dead leaf attached to a twig as almost certainly to deceive the eye even when gazing full upon it. I captured several specimens on the wing, and was able fully to understand the way in which this wonderful resemblance is produced.... All these varied details combine to produce a disguise that is so complete and marvellous as to astonish every one who observes it; and the habits of the insects are such as to utilize all these peculiarities, and render them available in such a manner as to remove all doubt of the purpose of this singular case of mimicry, which is undoubtedly a protection to the insect.

In 1867, in a manner which delighted Darwin, Wallace advanced his provisional solution of the cause of the gay and even gaudy colors of caterpillars as warnings of distastefulness. In 1868 he propounded his explanation of the colors of nesting birds, that when both sexes are conspicuously colored, the nest conceals the sitting bird, but when the male is conspicuously colored and the nest is open to view, the female is plainly colored and inconspicuous. His theory of recognition colors as of importance in enabling the young birds and mammals to find their parents was set forth in 1878, and he came to regard it as of very great importance.

In “Tropical Nature” (1878) the whole subject of the colors of animals in relation to natural and sexual selection is reviewed, and the general principle is brought out that the exquisite beauty and variety of insect colors has not been developed through their own visual perceptions, but mainly and perhaps exclusively through those of the higher animals which prey upon them. This conception of color origin, rather than that of the general influence of solar light and heat or the special action of any form of environment, leads him to his functional and biological classification of the colors of living organisms into five groups, which forms the foundation of the modern, more extensive and critical classification of Poulton. He concluded (p. 172):

We find, then, that neither the general influence of solar light and heat, nor the special action of variously tinted rays, are adequate causes for the wonderful variety, intensity and complexity of the colors that everywhere meet us in the animal and vegetable worlds. Let us, therefore, take a wider view of these colors, grouping them into classes determined by what we know of their actual uses or special relations to the habits of their possessors. This, which may be termed the functional and biological classification of the colors of living organisms, seems to be best expressed by a division into five groups, as follows:

Animals.│1. Protective colors. „ │2. Warning colors. │_a._ Of creatures specially protected. „ │ „ │_b._ Of defenseless creatures mimicking │ │ _a_. „ │3. Sexual colors. „ │4. Typical colors. ────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Plants. │5. Attractive colors.

Twelve years later he devoted four chapters of his “Darwinism” to the colors of animals and plants, still maintaining the hypotheses of utility, of spontaneous variation and of selection.

The study of geographic distribution of animals also sprang from the inspiration of the Malayan journey and from the suggestiveness of the eleventh and twelfth chapters of “The Origin of Species,” which Wallace determined to work out in an exhaustive manner. Following the preliminary treatises of Buffon, of Cuvier and Forbes, and the early regional classification of Sclater, Wallace takes rank as the founder of the science of zoogeography in his two great works, “The Geographical Distribution of Animals” of 1876, and “Island Life” of 1881, the latter volume following the first as the result of four years of additional thought and research. His early observations on insular distribution were sketched out in his article of 1860, “The Zoological Geography of the Malayan Archipelago.”

Here is his discovery of the Bali-Lombok boundary line between the Indian and the Australian zoological regions which has since been generally known by his name.

In these fundamental geologic and geographic works Wallace appears as a disciple of Lyell in uniformitarianism, and a follower of Dana as regards the stability and permanence of continental and oceanic areas, for which doctrine he advances much original evidence. He taxes his ingenuity to discover every possible means of dispersal of animals and plants other than those which would be afforded by hypothetical land connections; he considers every possible cause of extinction other than those which are sudden or cataclysmal.

The “Island Life” is in itself a great contribution to zoology and zoogeography, the starting-point of all modern discussion of insular faunas and floras. His conservative theory of dispersal is applied in an original way to explain the arctic element in the mountain regions of the tropics, as opposed to the low-temperature theory of tropical lowlands during the Glacial Period; his explanation is founded on known facts as to the dispersal and distribution of plants and does not require the extreme changes in the climate of tropical lowlands during the Glacial Period on which Darwin founded his interpretation. The causes and influence of the Glacial Epoch are discussed in an exposition of Croll’s theory. In this connection may be mentioned one of Wallace’s original geological contributions, in the article “Glacial Erosions of Lake Basins,” published in 1893, namely, his theory of glacial erosion as a means of explaining the origin of valley lakes of glaciated countries.

The original trend of Wallace’s thought as to the ascent of man is first shown in the three anthropological essays of 1864, 1869 and 1870, which were subsequently collected in the volume “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection.” This work, published in 1871, includes all his original essays from 1855 to 1869 on selection, on color and human evolution, which foreshadow the later development of his speculative philosophy.

A suggestive anthropological contribution is the article entitled “The Expressiveness of Speech or Mouth Gesture as a Factor in the Origin of Language,” in which is developed the theory of the origin of language in connection with the motions of the lips, jaws and tongue. With Wallace also arose the now widely accepted belief that the Australian aborigines constitute a low and perhaps primitive type of the Caucasian race.

In the article of 1864, “The Development of Human Races under the Law of Natural Selection,” Wallace first advanced the hypothesis which has since proved to be untenable, that so soon as man learned to use fire and make tools, to grow food, to domesticate animals, to use clothing and build houses, the action of natural selection was diverted from his body to his mind, and thenceforth his physical form remained stable, while his mental faculties improved. His subsequent papers on human evolution, “The Limits of Natural Selection as Applied to Man” of 1869, “On Instinct in Man and Animals” of 1871, mark the gradual divergence of his views from those of Darwin, for in his opinion natural selection is believed to be inadequate to account for several of the physical as well as psychical characteristics of man, for example his soft, sensitive skin, his speech, his color sense, his mathematical, musical and moral attributes. He concluded:

The inference I would draw from this class of phenomena is that a superior intelligence has guided the development of man in a definite direction, and for a special purpose, just as man guides the development of many animal and vegetable forms.

It is also prophetic of his later indictments of the so-called civilization of our times that we find at the end of the closing pages of “The Malay Archipelago” the first statement of the feeling which so many travelers have experienced from a comparison of the natural and so-called civilized condition of man that “social evolution from barbarism to civilization” has not advanced general human welfare. These humanitarian and partly socialistic ideas are developed in a series of recurrent essays between 1882 and 1903, including “The Nationalization of Land” and “Studies Scientific and Social.”

He returned to this subject in what we believe to be his last published essay, namely, his “Social Environment and Moral Progress” of 1913, wherein he considers the so-called “feministic” movement and future of woman:

The foregoing statement of the effect of established natural laws, if allowed free play under rational conditions of civilization, clearly indicates that the position of woman in the not distant future will be far higher and more important than any which has been claimed for or by her in the past.

While she will be conceded full political and social rights on an equality with men, she will be placed in a position of responsibility and power which will render her his superior, since the future moral progress of the race will so largely depend upon her free choice in marriage. As time goes on, and she acquires more and more economic independence, _that_ alone will give her an effective choice which she has never had before. But this choice will be further strengthened by the fact that, with ever-increasing approach to equality of opportunity for every child born in our country, that terrible excess of male deaths, in boyhood and early manhood especially due to various preventable causes, will disappear, and change the present majority of women to a majority of men. This will lead to a greater rivalry for wives, and will give to women the power of rejecting all the lower types of character among their suitors.

It will be their special duty so to mould public opinion, through home training and social influence, as to render the women of the future the regenerators of the entire human race.

In closing this review of a great life, we cannot refrain from reflecting on the pendulum of scientific opinion. The discovery of a great truth such as the law of selection is always followed by an over-valuation, from which there is certain to be a reaction. We are in the midst of such a reaction at the present time, in which the Darwin-Wallace theory of natural selection is less appreciated than it will be in the future when there comes a fresh readjustment of scientific values.

It is well to remember that we may not estimate either the man of science or his conclusions as of our own period, but must project ourselves in imagination into the beginnings of his thought and into the travails of his mind, considering how much larger he was than the men about him, how far he was an innovator, breaking away from the traditions of his times, how far his direct observations apart from theory are true and permanent, and how far his theories have contributed to the great stream of biological thought.

Our perspective has covered a long, honorable span of sixty-five years into the beginnings of the thinking life of a natural philosopher whose last volume, “The World of Life,” of the year 1911, gives as clear a portrayal of his final opinions as that which his first essay of 1858 portrays of his early opinions.

We follow the cycle of his reflection beginning with “adaptation” as the great mystery to be solved; in the middle and sanguine period of life, “adaptation” is regarded as fully explained by natural selection; in the closing and conservative period of life “adaptation” is again regarded in some of its phases as entirely beyond human powers of interpretation, not only in the evolution of the mental and spiritual nature of man, but in such marvellous manifestations as the scales of butterflies or the wings of birds.

From our own intellectual experience we may sympathize with the rebound of maturity from the buoyant confidence of the young man of thirty-five who finds in natural selection the entire solution of the problem of fitness which has vexed the mind and aroused the scientific curiosity of man since the time of Empedocles. We have ourselves experienced a loss of confidence with advancing years, an increasing humility in the face of transformations which become more and more mysterious the more we study them, although we may not join with this master in his appeal to an organizing and directing supernatural principle. Younger men than Wallace, both among the zoologists and philosophers of our own time, are giving a somewhat similar metaphysical solution of the eternal problem of adaptation, which still baffles and transcends our powers of experiment and of reasoning.

CHARLES DARWIN 1809–1882

I met Darwin in Huxley’s laboratory and my impression of his personality is described in the address on the Life and Works of Darwin, which was delivered at Columbia University on the hundredth anniversary of his birth, as an introduction to a series of nine lectures on Charles Darwin and his influence in science. The fact that Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day, February 12, 1809, brought together these two great men, so widely different in their vocations, so similar in their reverence for the truth, in their simplicity and directness of life.

The address at the Darwin Centenary at Cambridge was delivered at the request of my American colleagues, in reply to the reception of the delegates. It was strictly limited as to time, presenting the problem of speaking of Darwin to the men who knew him personally, who recalled almost every detail of his life—to sum up in comparatively few words the outstanding facts of his influence. The form of this address is therefore quite in contrast to the preceding tribute, which was without time limitation.

LIFE AND WORKS OF DARWIN

I

Columbia University is celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Darwin, the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the “Origin of Species.” In the year 1809 many illustrious men[3] were born, among them Darwin and Lincoln, one hundred years ago today, February 12. So widely different in their lives, Darwin and Lincoln were yet alike in simplicity of character and of language, in love of truth, in abhorrence of slavery, and especially in unconsciousness of their power. Both were at a loss to understand their influence over other men. “I am nothing and truth is everything,” once wrote Lincoln. In concluding his autobiography Darwin wrote:

With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points. My success as a man of science has been determined as far as I can judge, by complex and diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most important have been the love of science, unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject, industry in observing and collecting facts, a fair share of invention as well as of common sense.

Lincoln’s greatest single act was his death-blow to slavery. Man had been fighting for centuries for freedom, in labor, in government, in religion, and in mind. It is certainly notable that the final victory for bodily liberty was won during the very years which witnessed the final emancipation of the mind. I do not see that Darwin’s supreme service to his fellow men was his demonstration of evolution—man could have lived on quite as happily and perhaps more morally under the old notion that he was specially made in the image of his Maker. Darwin’s supreme service was that he won for man absolute freedom in the study of the laws of nature; he literally fulfilled the saying of St. John, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

When we look back upon the very recent years of 1858–59, the years of revolution, we see that we were far from free either to study nature or reason about it. Our intellectual chains were from the forges of theology both catholic and protestant. The Bible was read as a revelation of physical law rather than as an epic of righteousness and spiritual law. Theology while in power was itself in a most critical position, in a _cul-de-sac_ of antagonism to reason and common sense, and this despite the warnings of Augustine and of Bacon. As early as the fifth century the wise theologian of Numidia had said:

Leave questions of the earth and the sky and the other elements of this world to reasoning and observation. Perceiving that you are as far from the truth as the east from the west the man of science will scarce restrain his laughter.

Similarly, the great founder of the inductive method observed:

Do not excite the laughter of men of science through an absurd mixture of matters human and divine. Do not commit the consummate folly of building a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis or on the Book of Job.

It is difficult for the college student in this day of liberty, if not of license, to realize that, in the words of Lowell:

We breathe cheaply in the common air thoughts that great hearts once broke for.

When, in 1844, Darwin communicated to the botanist Hooker under promise of secrecy his outline of evolution, he well knew the opprobrium it would bring, for he subsequently added (1846):

When my notes are published I shall fall infinitely low in the opinion of all _sound_ naturalists, so this is my prospect for the future.

From the borders of Poland in 1543, or just three centuries earlier, Copernicus had published his “Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies” and thus fired the first shot in a three hundred years’ war for freedom to observe nature. In 1611 the telescope of Galileo demonstrated the truth of the Copernican law that the earth moves around the sun; and the most impressive object today in Florence is the model of the finger of this great astronomer as he held it up before the examiners of the Inquisition, with the words, “It still moves.”