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

"300 MY LIFEthe population. The facts and arguments I adduceare, I believe, conclusive against the two classes ofwriters here referred to.A year later I contributed a paper to the BostonArena, dealing more especially with the laws ofheredity and the influence of education as determininghuman progress, showing that such progress is atpresent very slow, and is due almost entirely to onemode of action of natural selection, which still eliminatessome of the most unfit. And I pointed out thata more real and effective progress will only be madewhen the social environment is so greatly improvedas to give to women a real choice in marriage, andthus lead both to the more rapid elimination of thelower, and more rapid increase of the higher types ofhumanity.Other articles were, " A Representative House ofLords," in the Contemporary Review (June), and "ASuggestion to Sabbath-Keepers," in the NineteenthCenttiry (October), both which articles attracted noticein the Press. I also wrote a paper criticizing the Rev.George Henslow's view as to the origin of irregularflowers, and of spines and prickles, in Natural Science(September), the three articles being included in my" Studies." I also reviewed James HutchinsonStirling's " Darwinianism " in Nat2cre (February 8),and Mr. Benjamin Kidd's " Social Evolution " in thesame paper (April 12), as well as an anonymousvolume, entitled "Nature's Method in the Evolutionof Life," by a writer who suggests vague theories, lessintelligible even than those of Lucretius, as a substitutefor the luminous work of Darwin.In the next year (1895) I wrote an importantarticle on " The Method of Organic Evolution{Fortnightly Review, February-March), which was