Alfred Russel Wallace : Alfred Wallace : A. R. Wallace :
Russel Wallace : Alfred Russell Wallace (sic)
Letter to Norman Douglas (S707ae: 1922)
Editor Charles H. Smith's Note: A portion of a letter to the writer Norman Douglas, whose 1922
book Alone contains a wide range of observations, including one of interest to students of
evolutionary biology. The relevant portion of Douglas's remarks is reproduced below; Wallace's
comments appeared in a note placed at the bottom of page 127. Original pagination indicated
within double brackets. To link directly to this page, connect with:
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S707AE.htm
[[p. 126]] . . . There are things in [[Arthur]]
Schopenhauer which make one blush for philosophy. The day may dawn when
this man will be read not for what he says, but for how he says it; he
being one of the few of his race who can write in their own [[p.
127]] language. Impossible, of course, not to hit upon a good thing
now and then, if you brood as much as he did. So I remember one passage
wherein he adumbrates the theory of "Recognition Marks" propounded later
by A. R. Wallace, who, when I drew his attention to it, wrote that he
thought it a most interesting anticipation.1
He [[Schopenhauer?]]
must have stumbled upon it by accident, during one of his excursions into
the inane. . .
Note (from Wallace) Appearing in the Original Work
1. Parkstone, Dorset. July 19, 1894.
"Many thanks for your reference to Schopenhauer's remarks on Recognition
Marks, which I thought I was the first to fully point out. It is a most
interesting anticipation. I do not read German, but from what I have heard
of his works he was the last man I should have expected to make such an
acute suggestion in Natural History." [[at the bottom
of p. 127]]
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Copyright: Alfred Russel Wallace Literary Estate.
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