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

240 MY LIFEpresent.We did not yet know enough of matter inits essential constitution nor of the various forces ofnature ; and all he could say was that everythingpointed to life having been a development out ofmatter—a phase of that continuous process of evolutionby which the whole universe had been broughtto its present condition. So we had to wait and workcontentedly at minor problems. And now, afterforty years, though Spencer and Darwin and Weismannhave thrown floods of light on the phenomenaof life, its essential nature and its origin remain asgreat a mystery as ever. Whatever light we dopossess is from a source which Spencer and Darwinneglected or ignored.The first letter I received from Spencer was whenI sent him my paper on " The Origin of HumanRaces under the Law of Natural Selection." He saidthat he had read it with great interest, and added." Its leading idea is, I think, undoubtedly true," concludingwith a hope that I would pursue the inquiry.Soon afterwards he invited me to dine with himin Bayswater, where he lived for many years in aboarding-house with rather a commonplace set ofpeople ; and I visited him there several times.In 1872, in my presidential address to the EntomologicalSociety, I endeavoured to expound HerbertSpencer's theory of the origin of insects, on the viewthat they are fundamentally compound animals, eachsegment representing one of the original independentorganisms. On sending him a copy of the address,he wrote to me as follows ": It is gratifying to me tofind that your extended knowledge does not leadyou to scepticism respecting the speculation of minewhich you quote, but rather enables you to citefurther facts in justification of it. Possibly your