CHAPTEE XL 



THE WRITING OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 



" I have done my best. If you had all my material I am sure you would 

 have made a splendid book." From a letter to Lyell, June 21, 1859. 



JUNE 18, 1858, TO NOVEMBER 1859. 



C. D. to C. Lyell. Down, 18th [June 1858]. 



My dear Lyell Some year or so ago you recom- 

 mended 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 fore- 

 stalled. 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 coinci- 

 dence ; 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, whatever it may amount to, 

 will be smashed, though my book, if it will ever have any 

 value, will not be deteriorated; as all the labour consists in 

 the application of the theory. 



I hope you will approve of Wallace's sketch, that I may 

 tell him what you say. 



My dear Lyell, yours most truly. 



* Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 1 855. 



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