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

3i6MY LIFEmight be adopted for the House of Commons. Theseappeared in the Fortnightly Review in the earlymonths of 1907.A little later I was asked to write one of theintroductory chapters for " Harmsworth's Historyof the World," which I did under the title, " HowLife became Possible on the Earth." In this chapterI gave a popular statement of those numerous andcomplex conditions and adaptations, which I hadshown, in my work on " Man's Place in the Universe,"to be the essential preliminary to the slow developmentof organic life, and which do not exist in theirexact combination on any other planet.A little earlier I had written (at request) arather lengthy article on " Evolution and Character,"intended to form part of a series of booklets onvarious aspects and applications of the doctrine ofevolution. This series did not appear, and myarticle was published in the Fortnightly Review ofJanuary, 1908. The subject was treated in a somewhatnovel way, and excited much discussion andcriticism, as well as high appreciation from severalunknown correspondents.Early in 1907 I obtained a copy of ProfessorPercival Lowell's new and popular work, " Mars andits Canals," in which, even more confidently thanbefore, he put forth his views as to the planet beinginhabited by beings of at least the same grade ofintelligence as ourselves, and that the strange " lines,"forming a kind of network over its surface, reallyindicated irrigation canals, artificially constructed torender its deserts habitable. This whole idea seemedto me so entirely opposed to the teachings of physicaland biological science, though very attractive to thepublic who had no means of weighing the evidence