... It is in its
application to the problems of human society that there still
remains an enormous field of work and discovery for the
Darwin-Wallace doctrine.
In the special branch of study which Wallace himself set
going--the inquiry into the local variations, races, and species
of insects as evidence of descent with modification, and of the
mechanism by which that modification is brought about--there is
still great work in progress, still an abundant field to be
reaped.... Several able observers and experimenters have set
themselves the task of improving, if possible, the theoretical
structure raised by Darwin and Wallace.... But I venture to
express the opinion that they have none of them resulted in any
serious modification of the great doctrine submitted to the
Linnean Society on July 1st, 1858, by Charles Darwin and Alfred
Russel Wallace. Not only do the main lines of the theory of Darwin
and Wallace remain unchanged, but the more it is challenged by new
suggestions and new hypotheses the more brilliantly do the
novelty, the importance, and the permanent value of the work by
those great men, to-day commemorated by us, shine forth as the one
great epoch-making effort of human thought on this subject.
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