Wallace as writer

But despite their differences each man deeply valued the other. Darwin persuaded the British government to award Wallace a pension for services to science. Wallace dedicated his book The Malay Archipelago to Darwin, “as a token of personal esteem and friendship but also to express my deep admiration for his genius and his works.” Wallace also called his 1889 collection of evolutionary essays Darwinism. Even before the term ‘Darwinism’ had gained currency, he mentioned that the theory was coming to be called ‘Darwinianism’. He wrote to Darwin in 1868, “I hope you do not dislike the word, for we really must use it.” It was, however, a relationship mostly based on letters. Cheaper paper, the new system of postage stamps, an ever-expanding empire, increasing literacy, improved transport systems, and diversifying technologies all encouraged the rapid growth of the postal service during the Victorian period. Thousands of letters moved across the world, bringing the edges of empire together. One of the most remarkable was from Wallace, by then long returned from his travels, urging Darwin to consider replacing the term ‘natural selection’ with Herbert Spencer’s phrase ‘survival of the fittest’. Wallace told Darwin that any comparison between artificial and natural selection was liable to be taken literally, and that the word ‘selection’ necessarily implied a selector — the antithesis of what he and Darwin really meant. Darwin hesitated, but eventually made the change in the fifth edition of the Origin (1869). Wallace went through his own copy of the Origin deleting the words ‘natural selection’ and inserting by hand ‘survival of the fittest.’ Given that it was the teleological implications of the term ‘selection’ that Wallace was objecting to, it is ironic that his worldview became increasingly teleological as he aged. These four words ‘survival of the fittest’ became a significant element in wider Victorian culture and have remained prominent in the public understanding of evolutionary theory today. Darwin had famously avoided the issue of human evolution in the Origin because he worried it was too controversial. He was impressed by Wallace’s bold application of the idea to humankind in 1864. Wallace proposed that human beings emerged in a single group from apelike ancestors and then rapidly diverged under the impetus of natural selection. Yet in 1869, Wallace backtracked on his commitment to natural selection in human evolution. He claimed instead that the mental attributes of modern human beings must emerge from some force or power outside the natural world. There must be something else other than mere matter in this world, Wallace maintained: “whether we call it God, or spirit,” it surely played an important role in human evolution. “I hope you have not murdered too completely your own & my child” Darwin exclaimed in horror, “I differ grievously from you, and I am very sorry for it.” Darwin eventually laid out his views on humans in the Descent of Man (1871), saying to Wallace, “Fate has ordained that almost every point on which we differ should be crowded into this volume.” Remarkably, Wallace wrote back cheerfully to say “I look forward with fear & trembling to being crushed under a mountain of facts!” Generally speaking, their personal relationship deepened as time went by. In 1865, Wallace confided his distress when his engagement to be married was broken off by the lady concerned. “You may imagine how this has upset me when I tell you that I never in my life before had met with a woman I could love, & in this case I firmly believe I was most truly loved in return.” Wallace went on to marry Annie Mitten, the eldest daughter of the bryologist William Mitten. The friendship between Wallace and Darwin was to last more than thirty years. In 1870 Darwin felt able to say to Wallace, “Your modesty and candour are very far from new to me. I hope it is a satisfaction to you to reflect — and very few things in my life have been more satisfactory to me — that we have never felt any jealousy towards each other, though in one sense, rivals. I believe that I can say this of myself with truth, and I am absolutely sure that it is true of you.”