e mists which concealed it the
moment before, glittering under the rays of the sun in all its
simplicity and variety, in all its mightiness and beauty. And when
the generalisation is put to a test, by applying it to hundreds of
separate facts which seemed to be hopelessly contradictory the
moment before, each of them assumes its due position, increasing
the impressiveness of the picture, accentuating some
characteristic outline, or adding an unsuspected detail full of
meaning. The generalisation gains in strength and extent; its
foundations grow in width and solidity; while in the distance,
through the far-off mist on the horizon, the eye detects the
outlines of new and still wider generalisations. He who has once
in his life experienced this joy of scientific creation will never
forget it; he will be longing to renew it; and he cannot but feel
with pain that this sort of happiness is the lot of so few of us,
while so many could also live through it--on a small or on a grand
scale--if scientific methods and leisure were not limited to a
handful of men."--PRINCE KROPOTKIN, "Memoirs of a Revolutionist."

The social and scientific atmosphere in which Wallace found himself on
his return from his eight years' exile in the Malay Archipelago was
considerably more genial than that which he had enjoyed during his
previous stay in London following his exploration of the Amazon. His
position as one of the leading scientists of the day was already
recognised, dating from the memorable 1st of July, 1858, when the two
Papers, his own and Darwin's, on the theory of Natural Selection had
been read before the Linnean Society.

During the four years which had elapsed since that date the storm of
criticism had waxed and waned; subsiding for a time only to burst out
afresh from some new quarter where the theory bade fair to jeopardise
some ancient belief in which scientist or theologian had rested with
comparative satisfaction until so rudely disturbed.

During this period Wallace had been quietly pursuing his researches in
the Malay Archipelago, though not without a keen interest in all that
was taking place at home in so far as this reached him by means of
correspondence and newspaper reports--his only means of keeping in touch
with the world beyond the boundaries of the semi-civilised countries in
which he was then living.

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