"In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge."

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Source: Alfred Russel Wallace (2016). “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of Essays”, p.42, Library of Alexandria

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Alfred Russel Wallace

Naturalist

Alfred Russel Wallace was a naturalist and biologist known for independently developing the theory of natural selection alongside Charles Darwin.

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"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."

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