My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

—I06MY LIFEbrother obtained a partnership in some firm in apopulous town or city, or had established himself inhis profession, I might never have turned to natureas the solace and enjoyment of my solitary hours,my whole life would have been differently shaped,and though I should, no doubt, have given someattention to science, it seems very unlikely that Ishould have ever undertaken what at that time seemedrather a wild scheme, a journey to the almost unknownforests of the Amazon in order to observe nature andmake a living by collecting. All this may have beenpure chance, as I long thought it was, but of late yearsI am more inclined to Hamlet's belief when he said" There's a divinity that shapes our ends,Rough-hew them how we will."Of course, I do not adopt the view that each man'slife, in all its details, is guided by the Deity for Hisspecial ends. That would be, indeed, to make us allconscious automata, puppets in the hands of an allpowerfuldestiny. But I have good reasons for thebelief that we are surrounded by a host of unseenfriends and relatives who have gone before us, andwho have certain limited powers of influencing, andeven, in particular cases, almost of determining, theactions of living persons, and may thus in a greatvariety of indirect ways modify the circumstances andcharacter of any one or more individuals in whomthey are specially interested. But a great number ofthese occurrences in every one's life are apparentlywhat we term chance, and even if all are so, theconclusion I wish to lay stress upon is not affected.It is, that many of the conditions and circumstancesthat constitute our environment, though at the timethey may seem unfortunate or even unjust, yet are