DR. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12377, 16 December 1905, Page 7

DR. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.

THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.

("T.P.'s Weekxt."), ■„ The career of Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, who discovered the theory of Natural Selection, simultaneously with Darwin,, is naturally the subject of great popular interest. In "My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions, this distinguished man of ecienee tells us nil abont himself in the simplest and most unaffected manner possible. Born at Usfc, in, Monmouthshire, in 1823, he went to Hertford et the age of five, where he spent his schooldays. One curious renrinieoence of this period is connected wi-tb. cricket. At that tune overhand bowling was only just commencing, and there was a good deal of controversy as to whether it should be tolerated or not. In the meantime, a substitute for the human' bowler, a kind of catapult, was invented, very, much after the fashion of those old instruments of warfare by which stones were hurled into besieged cities. AT SCHOOL. It is curious to find this man of European reputation looking back on little incidents in the far-off school days and recalling them with euch vivid distinctness. Here is an episode which one would expect to be woven into the woof of euch books as "David Copperfield" of "Le Petit Chose" rather than in a volume from the pen of Darwin's large-minded rival. Like most schoolboys, young Wallace woe very hard on his clothes, with the usual consequences. A*> they were expensive articles, his mother determined to save his school jackets by making covers for the sleeves. "These," he telk us, "were made of blaok oalko, reaching from the cuff to the elbow, and though I protested that I could not wear them, that I should be looked upon as a guy, and other equally valid reasons, they were one day put into my pocket, and I was told to put them on just before I entered the school. Of course, I could not dp it j so I brought them back and told my mother. „ Then, after another day or two of trial, one morning the dreaded thunderbolt.fell upon mc. On entering school, I was called up to the master's desk; he produced the dreaded calico eleeves, and told mc that * my mother wished mc to wear them to save my jacket", and told mc to put them on. Of course, I had to do so." The author, whom scientific investigation has led to many parts of the earth's eurface, whose reputation has for so long been established amongst the most eminent thinkers of his period, records this petty incident as being, while it lasted, the most severe punishment he endured. Apropos of the stupidities forced upon youth, whether from harshness or from kindness, the author cites the case of tho famous. Jack Mytton, who received four.'hundred a year at school, and was eaid to have spent eight hundred. Ex-

pelted both from Westminster and from Barrow, lie became a ct>rnet in the 7th 'Hussars, which he joined in France with the army of occupation, after tho battle of Waterloo; Some time afterwards, when he had left the army, he was arrested at Calais on bills which he had accepted in favour of a professional men with whom he had dealings. ' As soon as ho woe out of prison—his solicitor had como to the rescue and paid the debt—Mytton took his creditor by the arm and walked with him through the town so that the affair might not in any way injure his professional reputation. The author comments on this act of rare generosity on the port of a man who from first to last never did any good to himself, and then protests against "our ignorant and often disastrous rule" by which young lives are iso constantly being spoilt. ST. GEORGE MIVART. Dr. Wallace comments on tho fact that, like Darwin, St. George Mirart was almost self-taught, so far as biology was concerned, and it was only at tho ago of twenty-five that he turned his attention to anatomy. He had been educated for the bar, and when he announced his intended change of profession his father said to him, "Well, you never have earned a penny yet. and I suppose you never will." Dr. Wallace considers St. George Mivart's case very similar to that of Darwin, who. on leaving school, was considered both "by his masters and by his father "a very °r d ™j ar y j boyi rather below the common standard in intellect." As for the author's own opinion of Darwin, it can best bo expressed in the words of Huxley, which he quotes with unqualified approval:— * •lv? m l c< i vI . d not converse with Darwin without being reminded of Socrates. Inere was the same desire to find someone wuser than himself; the same belief in the sovereignty of reason; the eamo ready humour; tho same sympathetic interest in all the waye and works of men.-But instead of turning away from tho problems of nature as wholly insoluble, our modern philosopher devoted nis whole life to attacking them in the spirit of Horaclitus and Democritus, with results which bto as the substnnce of which their speculatione aro but ac anticipatory shadows." .LOWELL'S LATIN. A good deal of spece is given in this book to his lecturing toure in the United States and Canada. On ono occasion, when dining with -the Naturalists' Club m Boston, he found himself sitting next to Lowell, and was rather awed, as he knew little of the distinguished American c writings, and imagined that Lowell had never heard of him at all. "The condition of things," he tells us, '■wasf not improved by his quoting come Latin author to illustrate somo remark addressed to mc, evidently to sco if I was a scholar. I was so taken aback that instead of saying I had forgotten the little Latin I ever knew, and that my special interests were in Nature, I merely replied vaguely to his observations. I quote this little incident because it is typical of the profound humility which runs all through this book. Another distinguished man who is sketched in the autobiography is the French geographer, Eliseo Reclus. "Hβ was," says the author, " a rather small and very delicate-looking man, highly intellectual, but very quiet in epeech amd manner. really did not know that it was ho with whose name I had teen familiar for twenty years as the greatest of geographers, thinking it must have been his father or elder brother; and I was surprised when, on asking him, he said that it was himself." SPIRITUALISM. Dr. Wallace's conversion to spiritualism was not approved of by hie scientific friends, and "The Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural" was the object of sharp criticism. For example, we find Professor Tyndali admittimg in a letter to the author that it wee ho who had reproached Thackeray for allowing a certain article about "Home" to appear in the "Cornhill." "Poor Thackeray," continues Professor Tyndall, "was abashed by the earnestness of my remonstrance regarding the lending the authority of his name to 'Stranger Than Fiction,' my great respect for Thackeray rendorins my remonstrance earnest." Some time afterwards the author narrates in a letter to Tyndall, "One of tho scores of equally remarkable things I have witnessed":—

' "The place was the ditawing-rootn qf a friend of mine, a brother of one of our ibefct artiete. The witnesses were his own and his brother's v family, one or two of their friends, myself, and Mr John Smith, banker, of Malton, Yorkshire, introduced by mc; The medium was Mies Nichol. We sat round a pillartable in the middle of the room, exactly under, a class chandelier: Miss Nichol sat opposite mc, and my friend, Mr Smith, eat next her. Wo all held our neighbours' hands, and Mies Nichol's hands were both held by Mr Smith, n stranger to all but myself, and who had never met Miss N. before. When comfortably arranged in this manner the lighte were put out, one of the party holding a box of matches ready to strike a light when asked. After a few minute's conversation, during a psriod of silence, I heard the following sounds in rapid succession; a slight rustle, as or a lady's dress; a little tap, such as might be made by eetting down a wineglass on the tables and a very slight jingling of the drops of the class chandelier. An instant after Mr Smith said, 'Miss Nichol is gone. . The matchholder struck a light, and on the table (which had no cloth) was Miss Nichol seated hi her chail - , her head just touching the chandelier." The author did not imagine for a moment that his correspondent would be satisfied with this evidence. "Of course," he adds, "I did not expect ■Professor Tyndall to accept such a fact on my testimony; on the contrary, I, described it for the very purpose of arguing that, if he himself had been present, he would probably not have been satisfied -that it was not a trick, unices he could have it repeated under varied condition*."