"We permit absolute possession of the soil of our country, with no legal rights of existence on the soil to the vast majority who do not possess it. A great landholder may legally convert his whole property into a forest or a hunting-ground, and expel every human being who has hitherto lived upon it. In a thickly-populated country like England, where every acre has its owner and its occupier, this is a power of legally destroying his fellow-creatures; and that such a power should exist, and be exercised by individuals, in however small a degree, indicates that, as regards true social science, we are still in a state of barbarism."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Last Words, addendum to later editions.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS (January 8 1823 – November 7 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. He independently proposed a theory of natural selection ("On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type") which prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own more developed and researched theory sooner than he had intended. Wallace is sometimes called the "father of biogeography".
13 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Alfred Russel Wallace →
Related Quotes
"Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species."
"The smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable, though less so when it has newly fallen from the tree…"
"The powerful retractile talons of the falcon- and the cat-tribes have not been produced or increased by the volition …"
"I think I have fairly heard and fairly weighed the evidence on both sides, and I remain an utter disbeliever in almos…"
"On the question of the "origin of species" Mr. Haughton enlarges considerably; but his chief arguments are reduced to…"
"I have carefully measured the proboscis of a specimen of [Neococytius] cluentius from South America in the collection…"
"In one of my latest conversations with Darwin he expressed himself very gloomily on the future of humanity, on the gr…"
"He [the naturalist] looks upon every species of animal and plant now living as the individual letters which go to mak…"
"While upon the subject of plants I may here mention a few of the more striking vegetable productions of Borneo. The w…"
"I thought of the long ages of the past, during which the successive generations of this little creature had run their…"