Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 15 



Meeting only a month before ; and, oddly enough, for the 

 first time among the new members of that body was Charles 

 Darwin. Other Papers were also read at the special meeting 

 on the 1st of July, but it will not have escaped your notice 

 that the whole correspondence relating to the two Papers on 

 the evolution of species was subsequent to the 17th of June ; 

 indeed, the joint letter from Sir Charles Lyell and myself 

 communicating them to the Society was only written on 

 June the 30th. 



Thus the death of Robert Brown was the direct cause of the 

 Theory of the Origin of Species being given to the world at 

 least four months earlier than would otherwise have been the 

 case. 



The communications were read, as was the custom in those 

 days, by the Secretary to the Society. Mr. Darwin himself, 

 owing to his own illness and distress, could not be present. 

 Sir Charles Lyell and myself said a few words to emphasise 

 the importance of the subject ; but, as recorded in the ' Life 

 ^nd Letters ' (Vol. ii. p. 126), although intense interest was 

 excited, no discussion took place : " the subject was too 

 novel and too ominous for the old school to enter the lists 

 before armouring." 



It cannot fail to be noticed that all these inter-communi- 

 cations between Mr. Darwin, Sir Charles Lyell, and myself 

 were conducted by correspondence, no two of us having met 

 in the interval between June the 18th and July the 1st, when I 

 met Lyell at the evening meeting of the Linnean Society; and 

 no fourth individual had any cognisance of our proceedings. 



It must also be noted that for the detailed history given above 

 there is no documentary evidence beyond what Francis Darwin 

 has produced in the ' Life and Letters/ There are no letters 

 from Lyell relating to it, not even answers to Mr. Darwin's 

 of the 18th, 25th, and 26th June ; and Sir Leonard Lyell 

 has at my request very kindly but vainly searched his 

 Uncle's correspondence for any relating to this subject beyond 

 the two above mentioned. There are none of my letters to 

 either Lyell or Darwin, nor other evidence of their having 

 existed beyond the latter's acknowledgment of the receipt of 



