'90 Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 



to " The Variation of Organic Beings under Domestication 

 and in their Natural State ; " and the second chapter of that 

 Part, from which we propose to read to the Society the 

 extracts referred to, is headed, " On the Variation of Organic 

 Beings in a state of Nature ; on the Natural Means of 

 Selection ; on the Comparison of Domestic Kaces and true 

 Species/' 



2. An abstract of a private letter addressed to Professor 

 Asa Gray, of Boston, U.S., in October 1857, by Mr. Darwin, 

 in which he repeats his views, and which shows that these 

 remained unaltered from 1839 to 1857. 



3. An Essay by Mr. Wallace, entitled " On the Tendency 

 of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type." 

 This was written at Ternate in February 1858. for the 

 perusal of his friend and correspondent Mr. Darwin, and 

 sent to him with the expressed wish that it should be for- 

 warded to Sir Charles Lyell, if Mr. Darwin thought it 

 sufficiently novel and interesting. So highly did Mr. Darwin 

 appreciate the value of the views therein set forth, that he 

 proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. 

 Wallace's consent to allow the Essay to be published as soon 

 as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided 

 Mr. Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was 

 strongly inclined to do (in favour of Mr. Wallace), the 

 memoir which he had himself written on the same subject, 

 and which, as before stated, one of us had perused in 1844, 

 and the contents of which we had both of us been privy to 

 for many years. On representing this to Mr. Darwin, he 

 gave us permission to make what use we thought proper of 

 his memoir, &c. ; and in adopting our present course, of 

 presenting it to the Linnean Society, we have explained to 

 him that we are not solely considering the relative claims to 

 priority of himself and his friend, but the interests of science 

 generally ; for we feel it to be desirable that views founded 

 on a wide deduction from facts, and matured by years of 

 reflection, should constitute at once a goal from which others 

 may start, and that, while the scientific world is waiting for 



