Costa J T
Highlands Biological Station, 265 N. Sixth Street, Highlands, NC, 28741, USA,
Theory Biosci. 2013 Dec;132(4):225-37. doi: 10.1007/s12064-013-0188-1. Epub 2013 Sep 7.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) and Charles Darwin (1809-1882) are honored as the founders of modern evolutionary biology. Accordingly, much attention has focused on their relationship, from their independent development of the principle of natural selection to the receipt by Darwin of Wallace's essay from Ternate in the spring of 1858, and the subsequent reading of the Wallace and Darwin papers at the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858. In the events of 1858 Wallace and Darwin are typically seen as central players, with Darwin's friends Charles Lyell (1797-1875) and Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) playing supporting roles. This narrative has resulted in an under-appreciation of a more central role for Charles Lyell as both Wallace's inspiration and foil. The extensive anti-transmutation arguments in Lyell's landmark Principles of Geology were taken as the definitive statement on the subject. Wallace, in his quest to solve the mystery of species origins, engaged with Lyell's arguments in his private field notebooks in a way that is concordant with his engagement with Lyell in the 1855 and 1858 papers. I show that Lyell was the object of Wallace's Sarawak Law and Ternate papers through a consideration of the circumstances that led Wallace to send his Ternate paper to Darwin, together with an analysis of the material that Wallace drew upon from the Principles. In this view Darwin was, ironically, intended for a supporting role in mediating Wallace's attempted dialog with Lyell.
阿尔弗雷德·拉塞尔·华莱士（1823 - 1913）和查尔斯·达尔文（1809 - 1882）被誉为现代进化生物学的奠基人。因此，人们对他们之间的关系给予了极大关注，从他们各自独立提出自然选择原理，到1858年春天达尔文收到华莱士从特尔纳特寄来的论文，以及随后1858年7月1日在林奈学会上宣读华莱士和达尔文的论文。在1858年的一系列事件中，华莱士和达尔文通常被视为核心人物，达尔文的朋友查尔斯·莱尔（1797 - 1875）和约瑟夫·道尔顿·胡克（1817 - 1911）则扮演配角。这种叙述导致人们没有充分认识到查尔斯·莱尔所扮演的更核心角色，他既是华莱士的灵感来源，也是其对比对象。莱尔具有里程碑意义的《地质学原理》中大量反对物种变异的论点被视为该主题的权威性论述。华莱士在探寻物种起源之谜的过程中，在他的私人野外笔记本中对莱尔的论点进行了探讨，这种方式与他在1855年和1858年的论文中与莱尔的交流相一致。通过考虑促使华莱士将其特尔纳特论文寄给达尔文的相关情况，以及分析华莱士从《地质学原理》中借鉴的材料，我表明莱尔是华莱士《砂拉越定律》和《特尔纳特》论文的核心对象。从这个角度看，具有讽刺意味的是，达尔文在调解华莱士与莱尔的尝试性对话中本应扮演配角。
