charles_darwin

110
Biographies
Wallace was much more than a naturalist who was a friend and
inferior colleague of Darwin’s. A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and
Rio Negro, with an Account of the Native Tribes, and Observations on the
Climate, Geology, and Natural History of the Amazon Valley (1853), a
description of the four years he spent in South America, established
his reputation as a good naturalist. His research in Indonesia, described
in The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-Utan, and the Bird of
Paradise. A Narrative of Travel with Studies of Man and Nature (1869),
during which he traveled more than 14,000 miles and collected more
than 120,000 specimens, established his reputation as one of the premier
British naturalists of the nineteenth century. His writings on ethnography,
zoogeography, geology, and astronomy in books such as The
Geographical Distribution of Animals with a Study of the Relations of Living
and Extinct Faunas as Elucidating the Past Changes of the Earth’s Surface
(1876) and Man’s Place in the Universe: A Study of the Results of
Scientific Research in Relation to the Unity or Plurality of Worlds (1903)
earned him the nickname The Grand Old Man of Science.
Wallace was more than a great scientist. He was also a leading
figure in the spiritualist movement. He lectured on the subject in
Britain and the United States and wrote a book of essays, On Miracles
and Modern Spiritualism (1875). He was a well-known social critic,
writing books such as Social Environment and Moral Progress (1913)
and The Revolt of Democracy (1913). He supported land nationalization
so that the proceeds could benefit the poor; he opposed vaccination
because he did not believe the policy actually prevented disease
in children and was thus a waste of valuable public resources.
Wallace’s interest in numerous causes—he called them
‘‘heresies’’—may have prevented him from receiving the full recognition
he deserved during his lifetime. He did not have a full-time professional
job in science (which meant he struggled financially until
he obtained a government pension from 1881 onward). He was not
made a fellow of the Royal Society until 1893 (although he received
the first Darwin Medal of the Society in 1890). Medallions bearing
his name were placed in the Natural History Museum of London and
Westminster Abbey, but he did not receive the attention accorded to
Darwin. Wallace thought of himself as a common man who defended
the common man: his achievements suggest that Wallace was anything
but common.