Il6 THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [1858.. 



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."] 



LETTERS. 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. 



Down, 1 8th [June 1858]. 



MY DEAR Lyell, Some year or so ago you recommended 

 me to read a paper by Wallace in the 'Annals,' * which had 

 interested you, and, as I was writing to him, I knew this 

 would please him much, so I told him. He has to-day sent 

 me the enclosed, and asked me to forward it to you.. It seems 

 to me well worth reading. Your words have come true with a 

 vengeance that I should be forestalled. You said this, when 

 I explained to you here very briefly my views of ' Natural 

 Selection ' depending on the struggle for existence. I never 

 saw a more striking coincidence ; if Wallace had my MS. 

 sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better 

 short abstract ! Even his terms now stand as heads of my 

 chapters. Please return me the MS., which he does not say 

 he wishes me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write 

 and offer to send to any journal. So all my originality, what- 

 ever it may amount to, will be smashed, though my book, 



* Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 1855. 



