The last week has seen some coverage in the popular prints of the anniversary of the paper read to the Linnean society in which Mr. Wallace and I outlined our theory:
"My Dear Sir, The accompanying papers, which we have the honour of communicating to the Linnean Society, and which all relate to the same subject, viz. the Laws which affect the Production of Varieties, Races, and Species, contain the results of the investigations of two indefatigable naturalists, Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. Alfred Wallace.
These gentlemen having, independently and unknown to one another, conceived the very same very ingenious theory to account for the appearance and perpetuation of varieties and of specific forms on our planet, may both fairly claim the merit of being original thinkers in this important line of inquiry; but neither of them having published his views, though Mr. Darwin has for many years past been repeatedly urged by us to do so, and both authors having now unreservedly placed their papers in our hands, we think it would best promote the interests of science that a selection from them should be laid before the Linnean Society."_
It was kind of Messers Lyell, Hooker and Bennett to describe Wallace and I as ‘indefatigable’ because in those years I was much prone to ill-health and while preparing the manuscript for the Origin I was sometimes barely capable of working for half an hour, such was my debility. But this – I beg your pardon – was not intended to be about me, but about Wallace, whom history has tended to forget.
For an appreciation of his work, I can do no more than refer you to a post Happy birthday natural selection! by Wallace’s Rottweiler, George Beccaloni the Curator of Orthoptera at the Natural History Museum in London.
I see a canine arms race developing here. I had a Bulldog in Mr Huxley, Mr Wallace’s familiar in the modern world is a Rottweiler.
In this vein, my late Captain Robert Fitzroy also deserves more appreciation than history allows him. Without his leadership and seamanship we may have died on several occasions and I recently spent a day in the magnificent British Library re-reading his account of the Voyage of the Beagle. His attempts to reconcile his observations with the Genesis acount of creation and the Noah’s deluge are almost painful to read, because he was a great observer of the natural world and without his instruction I might not have become such a comprehensive diarist and keen observer.
Perhaps Captain Fitzroy needs a canine familiar to savage the world into a better understanding of his many achievements, too. A Newfoundland) perhaps, to honour his love of the sea.
As we’re giving out dogs, I wonder who will get the poodle?
Um, perhaps it’s best you don’t answer that.
I think the Rt Hon Tony Blair for refusing to condemn and outlaw the teaching of creationism in British schools, when asked in Prime Ministers by Jenny Tonge MP. For that, he deserves the Poodle.
…Prime Minister’s Questions…
Jenny Tonge, for her part, doesn’t deserve a dog at all.
False in unum does not mean false in omnibus. Were that the case, we should all be deprived of our canine familiars.
False in unum does not mean false in omnibus.
Wise words indeed in an era of generalization.