"It then," he says, "first dawned on me that I might perhaps write a
book on the geology of the various countries visited, and this made me
thrill with delight. That was a memorable hour to me; and how distinctly
I can call to mind the low cliff of lava, beneath which I rested, with
the sun glaring hot, a few strange desert plants growing near, and with
living corals in the tidal pools at my feet!"[11]
Another point of comparison lies in the fact that at no time did the
study of man or human nature, from the metaphysical and psychological
point of view, appeal to Darwin as it did to Wallace; and this being so,
the similarity between the impression made on them individually by their
first contact with primitive human beings is of some interest.
Wallace's words have already been quoted; here are Darwin's: "Nothing is
more certain to create astonishment than the first sight in his native
haunt of a barbarian, of man in his lowest and most savage state. One
asks: 'Could our progenitors have been men like these--men whose very
signs and expressions are less intelligible to us than those of the
domesticated animals; men who do not possess the instinct of those
animals, nor yet appear to boast of human reason, or at least of arts
consequent on that reason?' I do not believe it is possible to describe
or paint the difference between a savage and civilised man.
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