THE WORLD OF LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1043, 4 February 1911, Page 9

THE WORLD OF LIFE.

: ♦ - DE.-A. E. WALLACE'S LATEST - 1 • BOOK. On' January 8 Dr. Alfred Eussel Wal« lacc celebrated his 1 eighty-eighth birthday. Hi*; name will always live in the history of scienco as the co-cla'oorator with Darwin of the evolution, theory. The two men simultaneously discovered tlie great secret of Nature. Wallace, with the modesty and st?lf-abnegat:on that have always characterised him, left Darwin to startle the world with-the discovery that has (says the "Christian- World")."revolutionised every department of political science, .and that Ims given a new trend even to theological thought and Biblical -criticism. But Wallace, through -tlio subsequent years,' has been patiently at work collecting and comparing- a .mass of invaluable material,modifying in ,some respects Darwin's theories, and tilling iu many details. Now, verging on his ninetieth year, he gives us, in "The World of Life," not only a "summary and completion of his'half-century of thought and work oh the Darwinian theory of evolution," but also the most able and certainly the,most scientific argument that has yet appeared for the existence! of' a creative and directive Power originating and controlling the processes, of Mature. Dr. Wallace is pre-eminently a naturalist, and no living man knows better how to place the. facts in their right setting and to draw, the surest deductions. Ho thus concludes his argument:—

. "I again urge, therefore,, that our greatest authorities admit -the necessity some mind—some organising and directive power—ill Nature; but they seem to contemplate .merely some unknown forces or some innate, rudimentary mind in cell or atom." Such .vague and petty suppositions, however, do not meet the necessities of Hid problem. I .admit that such forces and such rudimentary mind power may and probably do exist, but 1 maintain that they are wholly inadequate, and that some vast intelligence, some pervading Spirit is required to guide these lower fqrc;s in accordance with a preordained system of evolution of the organic world.- If, however, we go as far as this, we must go farther. If there is a ruling and creative power to which the existence of our cosmos is due, and if wo are-its'one and unique highest outcome, able to understand and to make use of the forces and products of Nature in a. way that no other animal has ix-en - ablo to "doi and if, further, there is any reasonable probability of a continuous life for us, in which we may still further develop thai higher spiritual nature which we j:o;?e?j, then we have a perfect-right, on logical and scientific grouuds, to sc« ill the infinitely varied products of tho animal and vegetable kingdoms, which wc n'louc can and do make use of," a preparation for ourselves, to assist in our mental development, and to lit us for a progressively higher state of existence aa spiritual beings."