Alfred Russel Wallace’s life is not as well known as that of another great naturalist of his time, Charles Darwin, but of course his life and work were very important in the last decades of the great English naturalist’s life.

Younger than Darwin, Wallace came to conclusions that he had been trying to clarify for decades. Wallace’s life is characterized by many similarities with his English counterpart, and also by some controversy. Let us see his story in this biography of Alfred Russel Wallace .

Biography of Alfred Russel Wallace

We will now look at Wallace’s whole life in a nutshell, talking especially about his trips to Malaysia, his similarities and differences with Darwin and the well-known and controversial incident of the letters he sent to the latter.

First years

Alfred Russel Wallace was born in Monmouthshire, Wales, on January 8, 1823, in a modest family of Anglican faith . At the age of 13 he decided to finish his studies to go and work as his brother’s apprentice carpenter and, in 1837, he went to help another brother in surveying.

Although in his adolescence he chose to dedicate himself to more mundane works, in 1844 he changed his mind when he received a book called Vestiges of the natural history of creation , in which scientific studies were combined with theology. The book, written by Robert Chambers, argued that the species were progressing in the evolutionary scale according to the divine will , a belief very much in line with the Victorian times that were passing.

That is why, after reading this book, Wallace decided that his profession would be that of naturalist. However, no matter how much he wanted to start this professional career, he was faced with the problem of where he would get the money and training that would allow him to travel to exotic lands and face possible threats in those far away places. He managed to manage and earn a modest salary by selling rare specimens that he collected.

Trip to Brazil and Malaysia

Inspired by the reading of The Voyage of the Beagle , Alfred Wallace traveled to Brazil between 1848 and 1852, with Henry Walter Bates, another naturalist . There they travelled along the rivers Amazonas and Negro and reached regions that no European had ever visited before.

Despite the fact that his dream was coming true, his professional career started off badly, as it was in the South American country where he contracted malaria and suffered from years of fevers that forced him to stay in bed. But he fought against the disease, and it didn’t stop him from starting to lay out some biogeographical principles, based on the distribution of insect species. Unfortunately, when he tried to return to Europe, the ship he was on caught fire and sank, losing the manuscripts of two books he was preparing.

In 1854 he would travel to Malaysia and, during the following 12 years, write more than 50 scientific articles on the natural history of the archipelago . While there he would succeed in providing a clearer Darwinian definition of the idea of species, in relation to reproductive isolation and differences with local subspecies and races.

From his beginnings in the field of naturalism, Wallace was characterized by being an admirer of Darwin, but at the same time being, to a certain extent, critical of him. He accepted the reproductive barrier posed by the English naturalist as a cause of speciation formation, that is, if two groups of individuals cannot reproduce with each other, the most certain thing is that they are two different species.

However, while accepting this principle, Wallace did not accept this idea as a definition of species. More factors had to be taken into account to define the limits of a species, whether animal or plant. He did consider that natural selection could lead to the formation of two new species from the same ancestral group of individuals, which is known today as the “Wallace effect.

It is also while in Malaysia that Wallace reaches conclusions very similar to those made by Charles Darwin while in the Galapagos Islands , such as that similar species, such as the finches, suffered modifications according to the demands of the environment and the capacity of the species to adapt to it.

What is remarkable about this thought is that Wallace, and this is something that has been quite ignored by the scientific community, came up with these ideas before Darwin, who was warned by his friend Charles Lyell when he learned that a young naturalist was formulating such convincing theories.

In 1856 Wallace traveled to Bali, traveling the channels between this island and neighboring Lombok, separated by only 20 kilometers. He found it striking that, despite being so close, they were home to such different species . He saw that in Bali there were animals typical of continental Asia, in Lombok there were marsupials, like those that can be found in Australia. It is at this point that Alfred Wallace draws the line that would receive his name, which serves to delimit the Indo-Malayan fauna of the west from the Austro-Malayan fauna of the east.

This line has been interpreted by other scientists as evidence of continental drift, since it would allow us to understand the why of two so different faunas in the same archipelago, besides supporting the idea of a primeval continent, Wallacea.

Based on these data and those obtained elsewhere in the world, Wallace wrote his book “Geographic distribution of animals”, in which he proposes to divide the earth into six biogeographic zones. Later he would travel to the islands of Ternate and Gilolo, where he would read Principles of Geology , written by Charles Lyell . It is the same book that Darwin read while on board the Beagle.

While in the islands, and suffering from a terrible episode of fevers, he wrote “On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type” (1858), where he argued that there were two factors controlling evolution: divergence between groups of individuals (Sarawak’s law), and the survival of the most adapted, the “winners”.

Knowing that his work could benefit the evolutionary theses, decided to send the manuscript to Darwin for his opinion and asked him to show it to Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker . After reading the manuscript, Darwin had a bittersweet feeling. It was interesting to see how some questions from his own research were answered, even though he had been a naturalist and traveller for much longer than Wallace.

Thinking about natural selection

While in Ternate, an island in Indonesia, the idea of natural selection began to crystallize in his mind. Being on the island, and suffering from fevers that left him practically paralyzed by pain and anguish, and he began to see in the thought of Malthus and the ideas of Lyell the principles that could explain the adaptation of organisms to the habitat . It is here that he begins to explain the process of divergence that is behind such an important diversity of living beings.

Beneficial changes in certain individuals help them survive and reproduce, making it easier for their genes to be passed on to the next generation. After several generations, these genes become common throughout the group or species.

Wallace was critical of the expression “natural selection”, especially when it was used as a synonym for the survival of the fittest . For Wallace, the specimens with not so advantageous characteristics did not necessarily have to stay behind in the race for survival, they simply would not have as many privileges as the most adapted ones.

The Wallace-Darwin Letter Incident

When talking about Wallace and Darwin’s figures, it is inevitable to talk about how the famous English naturalist took advantage of the discoveries of the Welsh counterpart, although the way in which he did so and the facts happened in general have caused debate.

In March 1858 Wallace sent his work On the Tendency of Varieties… to Darwin for his opinion . The problem is that it is not known exactly when the letter arrived.

It is believed that the text arrived on June 18, something affirmed by Darwin himself, and that it would be the proof that his principle of divergence, that is, the explanation of how the species differ from each other in spite of coming from the same common ancestor, would have formulated it in a completely independent way to Wallace’s ideas .

However, his detractors believe that Darwin was in possession of the letter earlier, between 2 and 3 June, which would have allowed him to read it for two weeks and study it in depth to draw his own conclusions, reworking his theories. This idea is based on the fact that a letter sent by Wallace to Henry Bates’ brother, and which would have been dispatched on the same day as the one addressed to Darwin, arrived in London on June 2.

Darwin was very meticulous about the letters he received, filing them in case he had to keep an eye on them in the future. However, as something that raises even more suspicions, the first letter he received from Wallace was never filed and has never been found. The rest of the letters from the Welshman to Darwin were found.

Darwin, who was then 49 years old, had been trying to find an explanation for the divergence between species for the last two decades and suddenly received a letter from someone much younger who had come to a rather plausible conclusion on his own. Was the English naturalist envious? What we do know is that he was quite upset by the letter, even considering abandoning his own work .

Despite the coup, his friends Charles Lyell and Joseph Dalton Hooker intervened to encourage Darwin and protect his extensive scientific work. The problem was that, unlike Wallace, he had nothing presentable at the time . The only thing that came to mind was to rethink Wallace’s thinking and adapt it in more Darwinian language.

There has been much talk about how, from this incident, to solve it in a friendly way, Darwin and Wallace agreed to work together on the origin of the species, and how these were differentiated as generations went by. However, there is a broad consensus that both scientists never read or published a co-authored paper. What happened is that Lyell and Hooker highlighted the contributions of both, although without Wallace’s permission , in a conference at the Linnean Society on July 1, 1858.

Despite this incident, in 1860 Alfred Russel Wallace received a copy of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” and expressed his great admiration for the English naturalist. In fact, he was proud to have helped Darwin’s evolutionary theses with his idea of the divergence between species.

Although he agreed with certain aspects of Darwin, it should be noted that Wallace was very opposed to the idea that the human mind had evolved through natural selection . Like other Victorian thinkers, Wallace believed that properly human abilities such as mathematical thinking, morality and spirituality were something revealed by the divine will, not as a result of the evolutionary process.

Another aspect in which he differed from Darwin was that some traits present in certain human races, such as loss of body hair, the structure of the hand, or the size of the brain, had not contributed significantly to the survival of those races. Moreover, did not share Darwin’s idea that there were intellectually superior races compared to so-called “wild” races .

In 1889 Wallace published Darwinism: an exposition of the theory of natural selection – with some of its applications , a text in which he coined the term Darwinism and that, possibly, was the one that made Alfred Russel Wallace, within the field of evolution, be overshadowed by the great work of Charles Darwin. Far from distancing himself from him through the correspondence incident, Wallace helped to keep Darwin’s figure from perishing over time.

Tour of Great Britain and last years

In 1862 Wallace returned to England as a well-known naturalist, although not as much as Darwin was. To be a second man, no matter how famous, does not benefit, and Wallace’s life when he returns to the British Isles proves it. Without economic security, he continued to depend on the sale of exotic specimens and lived on the taxes received for his writings . Despite the controversy, Charles Darwin and some of his friends made sure that Alfred Russel Wallace received a civil service pension as of 1881.

Wallace had a far more spiritual view of evolution than Darwin. Not only did he believe that mental faculties could not be the result of evolution, wanting to unite science with religious vision, but also he had beliefs somewhat removed from what would be considered properly scientific .

He was a proponent of phrenology, that is, that the shape of the skull implies differences in certain cognitive abilities and behavioral skills. Furthermore, he was against vaccination, considering that its application, more than a measure to improve the health of the population, was a control measure.

Alfred Russel Wallace died in Dorset, England, on November 7, 1913 at the age of 90 . Although he remained in Darwin’s shadow, his death was widely reported in the press of the time, and in fact, several scientists made sure that a medallion was placed in his honor near Darwin’s grave two years later.

Bibliographic references:

  • Gallardo, Milton H. (2013). Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913): Work and Figure. Chilean Journal of Natural History, 86(3), 241-250. https://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0716-078X2013000300002
  • Wallace, A. R. (1889). Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, with Some of Its Applications. London: Macmillan and Company. p. 494.