In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace ...

244 / In Darwin’s Shadow
wards which mankind ever has been, and still is tending? Our best thinkers
maintain that it is a state of individual freedom and self-government, rendered
possible by the equal development and just balance of the intellectual, moral,
and physical parts of our nature.” 60
Furthermore, Wallace believed that “savages,” on at least one level, were
more advanced than civilized peoples: “Now it is very remarkable that among
people in a very low state of civilisation, we find some approach to such a
perfect state....There are none of those wide distinctions, of education and
ignorance, of wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product
of our civilisation.” Here his socialism (in its more traditional sense) rings
loud and true: “There is none of that widespread division of labour which,
while it increases wealth, produces also conflicting interests; there is none of
that severe competition and struggle for existence, or for wealth, which the
dense population of civilised countries inevitably creates.” 61
Therefore, and in seeming direct contradiction to his previous statement, in
order for society to continue advancing to its perfect state, selection must
continue operating, but on an organized, social level, not the random selectionism
of nature. In 1890 Wallace published an article on “Human Selection”
in the Fortnightly Review, and in 1892 one on “Human Progress, Past and
Future” in the Boston Arena. In both papers he supported “the gradual improvement
of the race” (culturally) and opposed “the various artificial processes
of selection advocated by several English and American writers,” refering
to Francis Galton’s new science of “eugenics,” or the selective breeding
for “good traits.” While advocating a socialistic form of egalitarianism, Wallace
“showed that the only method of advance for us...isinsome form of
natural selection...that can act alike on physical, mental, and moral qualities
[and] will come into play under a social system which gives equal opportunities
of culture, training, leisure, and happiness to every individual.” 62 The
confusion over Wallace’s unique brand of socialism caused him to attempt a
clarification in a letter to William Tallack, April 20, 1899, in a discussion on
crime and the reform of criminals (the only goal of punishment, he thinks),
in which he concludes (knowing, as usual, that his reader will not agree with
him): “Of course you will think these ideas dreadfully wild, impractible and
socialistic. They are so, no doubt. But then I am a socialist.” 63
Wallace, along with Spencer in Social Statics, argued that societies progress
toward perfection along a hierarchy, with the goal of a state in which everyone
might fulfill their purpose without harming others. This ideal state would be
a classless society in which people would work for each other, and in the
process would yield a utilitarian goal of the greatest good for the greatest
number. It must follow, he argued, that “the more intellectual and moral—
must displace the lower and more degraded races; and the power of ‘natural