s="" institutes="" in="" london="" and="" leicester="" as="" a="" surveyor's="" apprentice="" pupil="" teacher.

The fact is that there are two traditions of explanation that march side by side in the ascent of man. One is the analysis of the physical structure of the world. The other is the study of the processes of life; their delicacy, their diversity, the wavering cycles from life to death in the individual and in the species. And these traditions do not come together until the theory of evolution; because until then there is a paradox which cannot be resolved, which cannot be begun, about life.

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The theory of evolution by natural selection was put forward in the 1850s independently by two men. One was Charles Darwin; the other was Alfred Wallace, Both men had some scientific background, or course, but at heart both men were naturalist. Darwin had been a medical student at Edinburgh University for two years, before his father who was a wealthy doctor proposed that he might become a clergyman and sent him to Cambridge. Wallace whose parents were poor and who had left school at 14, and followed courses at Working Men's Institutes in London and Leicester as a surveyor's apprentice and pupil teacher.

The fact is that there are two traditions of explanation that march side by side in the ascent of man. One is the analysis of the physical structure of the world. The other is the study of the processes of life; their delicacy, their diversity, the wavering cycles from life to death in the individual and in the species. And these traditions do not come together until the theory of evolution; because until then there is a paradox which cannot be resolved, which cannot be begun, about life.