My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org
My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org
"'224 MY LIFE"It seems to me that if we once admit thenecessity of any action beyond ' natural selection ' indeveloping man, we have no reason whatever forconfining that agency to his brain. On the meredoctrine of chances it seems to me in the highestdegree improbable that so many points of structure,all tending to favour his mental development, shouldconcur in man alone of all animals. If the erectposture, the freedom of the anterior limbs frompurposes of locomotion, the powerful and opposablethumb, the naked skin, the great symmetry of form,the perfect organs of speech, and, in his mentalfaculties, calculation of numbers, ideas of symmetry,of justice, of abstract reasoning, of the infinite, of afuture state, and many others, cannot be shown to beeach and all useftil to man in the very lowest state ofcivilization—how are we to explain their co-existencein him alone of the whole series of organized being ?Years ago I saw in London a bushman boy and girl,and the girl played very nicely on the piano. BlindTom, the half-idiot negro slave, had a ' musical earor brain, superior, perhaps, to that of the best livingmusicians. Unless Darwin can show me how thislatent musical faculty in the lowest races can havebeen developed through survival of the fittest, canhave been of use to the individual or the race, so as tocause those who possessed it in a fractionally greaterdegree than others to win in the struggle for life,I must believe that some other power (than naturalselection) caused that development. It seems to methat the onusprobaiidi will lie with those who maintainthat man, body and mind, could have been developedfrom a quadrumanous animal by natural *selection.'In a letter to Darwin, written a week laterand printed in the "Life, Letters, and Journals,"
LYELL AND DARWIN 225Sir Charles quotes the preceding argument entire,and goes on to express his general agreementwith it.He then refers to the glacial-lake theory asfollows :— " As to the scooping out of lake basins byglaciers,I have had a long, amicable, but controversialcorrespondence with Wallace on that subject, and Icannot get over (as, indeed, I have admitted in print)an intimate connection between the number of lakesof modern date and the glaciation of the regions containingthem. But as we do not know how ice canscoop out Lago Maggiore to a depth of 2600 feet, ofwhich all but 600 is below the level of the sea, gettingrid of the rock supposed to be worn away as if it wassalt that had melted, I feel that it is a dangerouscausation to admit in explanation of every cavitywhich we have to account for, including LakeSuperior."This passage shows, I think, that he was somewhatstaggered by my arguments, but could not takeso great a step without further consideration andexamination of the evidence. I feel sure, therefore,that if he had had before him the numerous factssince made known, of erratic blocks carried by the iceto heights far above their place of origin in NorthAmerica, and even in our own islands, as described atp. 75 and p. 90 of my " Studies " (vol. i.), with evidenceof such action now occurring in Greenland (p. 91), ofthe Moel Tryfan beds having been forced up by theglacier that filled the Irish sea, he would have seen, Ifeel sure, that his objections were all answered byactual phenomena, and that the gradual erosion ofLago Maggiore was far within the powers of suchenormous accumulations of ice as must have existedover its site.Q
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LYELL AND DARWIN 225Sir Charles quotes the preceding argument entire,<strong>and</strong> goes on to express his general agreementwith it.He then refers to the glacial-lake theory asfollows :— " As to the scooping out <strong>of</strong> lake basins byglaciers,I have had a long, amicable, but controversialcorrespondence with <strong>Wallace</strong> on that subject, <strong>and</strong> Icannot get over (as, indeed, I have admitted in print)an intimate connection between the number <strong>of</strong> lakes<strong>of</strong> modern date <strong>and</strong> the glaciation <strong>of</strong> the regions containingthem. But as we do not know how ice canscoop out Lago Maggiore to a depth <strong>of</strong> 2600 feet, <strong>of</strong>which all but 600 is below the level <strong>of</strong> the sea, gettingrid <strong>of</strong> the rock supposed to be worn away as if it wassalt that had melted, I feel that it is a dangerouscausation to admit in explanation <strong>of</strong> every cavitywhich we have to account for, including LakeSuperior."This passage shows, I think, that he was somewhatstaggered by my arguments, but could not takeso great a step without further consideration <strong>and</strong>examination <strong>of</strong> the evidence. I feel sure, therefore,that if he had had before him the numerous factssince made known, <strong>of</strong> erratic blocks carried by the iceto heights far above their place <strong>of</strong> origin in NorthAmerica, <strong>and</strong> even in our own isl<strong>and</strong>s, as described atp. 75 <strong>and</strong> p. 90 <strong>of</strong> my " Studies " (vol. i.), with evidence<strong>of</strong> such action now occurring in Greenl<strong>and</strong> (p. 91), <strong>of</strong>the Moel Tryfan beds having been forced up by theglacier that filled the Irish sea, he would have seen, Ifeel sure, that his objections were all answered byactual phenomena, <strong>and</strong> that the gradual erosion <strong>of</strong>Lago Maggiore was far within the powers <strong>of</strong> suchenormous accumulations <strong>of</strong> ice as must have existedover its site.Q
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