"Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time"
"As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways"
6 likes
Source: Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Berry (2003). “Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology”, p.85, Verso
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Alfred Russel Wallace
"What birds can have their bills more peculiarly formed than the ibis, the spoonbill, and the heron?"
"In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found."
"Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race"
"In one of my latest conversations with Darwin he expressed himself very gloomily on the future of humanity, on the ground that in our modern civilization natural selection had no play, and the fittest did not survive. Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most intelligent, and it is notorious that our population is more largely renewed in each generation from the lower than from the middle and upper classes."
"Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly."