The World of Life (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

In his 1910 preface Alfred Russel Wallace writes that his book, subtitled “A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose,” is a half-century of thought on evolution, covering plant life, geological formations, natural selection and, finally (going a step further than Darwin), the idea that evolution might suggest that the universe had a purpose or a “Life Principle”—the ultimate purpose of that life-development being Man.