“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.”

— Alfred Russel Wallace , book The Malay Archipelago

Last Words, addendum to later editions.
The Malay Archipelago (1869)

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Alfred Russel Wallace 12

British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist an… 1823–1913

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Alfred Russel Wallace 12

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