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

LIFE AT LEICESTER AND NEATH 123or practice would ever have made me a good musician,so, however much time and study I gave to the subject,I could never have become a good mathematician.Whether all this work did me any good or not, I amrather doubtful. My after-life being directed toaltogether different studies, I never had occasion touse my newly acquired knowledge, and soon forgotmost of the processes. But it gave me an interest inmathematics which I have never lost ; and I rarelycome across a mathematical investigation withoutlooking through it and trying to follow the reasoning,though I soon get lost in the formulae. Still,the ever-growing complexity of the higher mathematicshas a kind of fascination for me as exhibitingpowers of the human mind so very far above myown.There was in Leicester a very good town library,to which I had access on paying a small subscription,and as I had time for several hours' reading daily, Itook full advantage of it. Among the works I readhere, which influenced my future, were Humboldt's" Personal Narrative of Travels in South America,"which was, I think, the first book that gave me a desireto visit the tropics. I also read here Prescott's" History of the Conquests of Mexico and Peru,"Robertson's " History of Charles V." and his " Historyof America," and a number of other standard works.But perhaps the most important book I read wasMalthus's " Principles of Population," which I greatlyadmired for its masterly summary of facts and logicalinduction to conclusions. It was the first work I hadyet read treating of any of the problems of philosophicalbiology, and its main principles remainedwith me as a permanent possession, and twenty years