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

386 MY LIFEI have been unable to find any reference to thisimportant factor in the origin of language, and as nocompetent writer has pointed out any fallacy in it, Ithink I am justified in supposing it to be new andimportant. Mr. Gladstone informed me that therewere many thousands of illustrations of my ideas inHomer.10. In 1890 I published in the Fortnightly Reviewan article on " Human Selection," and inBoston Arena) one on " Human Progress,1892 (in thePast andFuture." These deal with different aspects of thesame great problem—the gradual improvement ofthe race by natural process ; and they were alsowritten partly for the purpose of opposing the variousartificial processes of selection advocated by severalEnglish and American writers. I showed that theonly method of advance for us, as for the loweranimals, is in some form of natural selection, and thatthe only mode of natural selection that can act alikeon physical, mental, and moral qualities will comeinto play under a social system which gives equalopportunities of culture, training, leisure, and happinessto every individual. This extension of the principleof natural selection as it acts in the animal worldgenerally is, I believe, quite new, and is by far themost important of the new ideas I have given to theworld.11. In an article on "The Glacial Erosion of LakeBasins" (in the FortJiightly Revieiv, December, 1893),I brought together the whole of the evidence bearingupon the question, and adduced a completely newargument for this mode of origin of the valley lakesof glaciated countries. This is founded on their