time." But may it not be safely prophesied that of all the names on the
starry scroll of national fame that of Charles Darwin will, surely,
remain unquestioned? And entwined with his enduring memory, by right of
worth and work, and we know with Darwin's fullest approval, our
successors will discover the name of Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin and
Wallace were pre-eminent sons of light.

Among the great men of the Victorian age Wallace occupied a unique
position. He was the co-discoverer of the illuminating theory of Natural
Selection; he watched its struggle for recognition against prejudice,
ignorance, ridicule and misrepresentation; its gradual adoption by its
traditional enemies; and its final supremacy. And he lived beyond the
hour of its signal triumph and witnessed the further advance into the
same field of research of other patient investigators who are disclosing
fresh phases of the same fundamental laws of development, and are
accumulating a vast array of new facts which tell of still richer light
to come to enlighten every man born into the world. To have lived
through that brilliant period and into the second decade of the
twentieth century; to have outlived all contemporaries, having been the
co-revealer of the greatest and most far-reaching generalisation in an
era which abounded in fruitful discoveries and in revolutionary
advances in the application of science to life, is verily to have been
the chosen of the gods.

Who and what manner of man was Alfred Russel Wallace? Who were his
forbears? How did he obtain his insight into the closest secrets of
nature? What was the extent of his contributions to our stock of human
knowledge? In which directions did he most influence his age? What is
known of his inner life? These are some of the questions which most
present-day readers and all future readers into whose hands this book