Abstract
Despite considerable research into this famed naturalist’s life and work, the metaphysical views of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) remain controversial. This paper reviews Wallace’s refurbishment of the argument from design, placing him within the highly charged intersection of biology and religion. Wallace’s own evolution from nature to natural theology can be readily demonstrated in writings dating from 1843 to his death in 1913. Numerous works reveal Wallace as nature’s prophet, a teleological visionary inspired by his unique experiences as a prodigious collector of species and keen observer of nature in South America and the Malay Archipelago. Furthermore, Wallace’s refurbishment of the argument from design, eschewing the special creation of William Paley (1743–1805) for a more nuanced version of creative and purposeful theistic evolution, represented one of the most innovative contributions of its kind in the Victorian/Edwardian eras, influencing a later generation of scientists and intellectuals.
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Notes
- 1.
The Victorian period saw the rise of a spiritualist movement that included some first-rate and noteworthy scientists, such as philologist Frederic Myers, chemist William Crookes, philosopher/logician James Hervey Hyslop, Nobel laureates Lord Rayleigh (who discovered argon gas) and Charles Richet (first to describe anaphylactic shock), and famed psychologist William James. For details, see Blum (2007).
- 2.
Marchant reproduced the complete letter from Darwin to Wallace dated 22 December 1857. The substance of Darwin’s reply seems dismissive and off-putting: “Though agreeing with you on your conclusion in the paper, I believe I go much farther than you; but it is too long a subject to enter on my speculative notions” (Marchant 1916: 1:141–142).
- 3.
On Darwin’s references to Hume, see Paul H. Barrett, Peter J. Gautrey, Sandra Herbert, et. al., transcribers and editors, Charles Darwin’s notebooks, 1836–1844 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; British Museum, 1987), pp. 321, 325, 545, 559, 591, 592, 596. On Darwin’s references to Comte, see Charles Darwin’s notebooks, pp. 535, 539, 553, 566, 608. For more on Hume’s and Comte’s influences on Darwin, see William B. Huntley (1972) and Sylvan S. Schweber (1979) respectively.
- 4.
“Creation by law” originally appeared in the October 1867 issue of The quarterly journal of science. Wallace reprinted it with certain revisions and additions in his collected works, Contributions to the theory of natural selection, first published in 1870 and reissued 1 year later “with corrections and additions.”
- 5.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) founded process philosophy and acknowledged his tremendous debt to Bergson, but in a letter to Oxford’s Hope Professor of Zoology, Edward Bagnall Poulton (28 May 1912), Wallace dismissed Bergson’s “vague ideas” of “an internal development force . . . of no real value as an explanation of Nature” (Marchant 1916: 2:107–108). On theosophy and reincarnation, see his letter to “Mrs. Fisher” (née Arabella Buckley), 9 April 1897 (Marchant 1916: 2:218–219).
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Flannery, M.A. (2016). Alfred Russel Wallace, Nature’s Prophet: From Natural Selection to Natural Theology. In: Das, I., Tuen, A. (eds) Naturalists, Explorers and Field Scientists in South-East Asia and Australasia. Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26161-4_3
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