Alfred Russel Wallace
Independently conceived the theory of evolution by natural selection and made significant contributions to biogeography.
Most quoted
"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 have continued to exist."
— from Letter to Charles Darwin, 1858
"The great superiority of the human intellect over that of the lower animals, and the fact that this superiority is not required by the conditions of savage life, seem to me to be an insuperable difficulty in the way of the theory of natural selection."
— from Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection
"The general result of the study of the fossil remains of the extinct mammalia is to show that the forms most nearly allied to those now living were the latest, and that the more ancient forms differ more and more widely from the existing types."
— from Island Life, 1880
All quotes by Alfred Russel Wallace (406)
The natives of the Aru Islands were, as a rule, intelligent and agreeable—savages, but savages of a high type.
It is a melancholy thought that the beautiful and the interesting are being destroyed never to be replaced.
The pursuit of truth has been the dominant idea of my whole life.
I have never felt any hostility to any religious belief of my fellow men.
The great antiquity of the earth and of the solar system is now universally admitted.
The universe, as a whole, is a symmetrical and orderly system.
The more I study nature, the more I become impressed with the idea of slow, orderly, and continuous progress.
The law that every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species, is, I believe, the key to the whole mystery of evolution.
The struggle for existence is not a mere scramble for food, but involves the whole complex relations of the organism to its environment.
The survival of the fittest is really the survival of the fittest *to the conditions*.
The world is full of mystery, and the more we know, the greater the mystery.
The first and most obvious cause of extinction is the competition of other species, better adapted to the conditions.
I consider it a great privilege to have lived in the century which saw the birth and development of the grandest and most suggestive scientific discovery of modern times—the theory of evolution.
The theory of natural selection is not incompatible with a belief in a Divine power.
The human body is a machine, but it is a machine directed by a mind.
The love of nature is a passion for those who have once felt its power.
The great book of nature is open to all, and the humblest may read it.
The true measure of a man's worth is not his knowledge, but his character.
We are not merely the creatures of circumstance; we are, in a great measure, the architects of our own fortunes.
The progress of science is the gradual discovery of the unity of nature.
Contemporaries of Alfred Russel Wallace
Other Biologys born within 50 years of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913).