The World of Life (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose

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.