200 WRITING OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, [ch. xi. 



and too ominous for the old school to enter the lists, before 

 armouring. After the meeting it was talked over with 

 bated breath : LyelPs approval and perhaps in a small way 

 mine, as his lieutenant in the affair, rather overawed the 

 Fellows, who would otherwise have flown out against the 

 doctrine. We had, too, the vantage ground of being familiar 

 with the authors and their theme." 



Mr. Wallace has, at my request, been so good as to allow 

 me to publish the following letter. Professor Newton, to 

 whom the letter is addressed, had submitted to Mr. Wal- 

 lace his recollections of what the latter had related to him 

 many years before, and had asked Mr. Wallace for a fuller 

 version of the story. Hence the few corrections in Mr. 

 Wallace's letter, for instance bed for hammock. 



A. R. Wallace to A. Newton. Frith Hill, Goclalming, 



Dec. 3rd, 1887. 



My dear Newtok I had hardly heard of Darwin 

 before going to the East, except as connected with the 

 voyage of the Beagle, which I think I had read. I saw 

 him once for a few minutes in the British Museum before 

 I sailed. Through Stevens, my agent, I heard that he 

 wanted curious varieties which he was studying. I think 

 I wrote to him about some varieties of ducks I had sent, 

 and he must have written once to me. I find on looking 

 at his " Life " that his first letter to me is given in vol. 

 ii. p. 95, and another at p. 109, both after the publication 

 of my first paper. I must have heard from some notices 

 in the Athenwum, I think (which I had sent me), that he 

 was studying varieties and species, and as I was continually 

 thinking of the subject, I wrote to him giving some of my 

 notions, and making some suggestions. But at that time 

 I had not the remotest notion that he had already arrived 

 at a definite theory still less that it was the same as oc- 

 curred to me, suddenly, in Ternate in 1858. The most 

 interesting coincidence in the matter, I think, is, that I, 

 as well as Darwin, was led to the theory itself through 

 Malthus in my case it was his elaborate account of the 

 action of " preventive checks " in keeping down the pop- 

 ulation of savage races to a tolerably fixed but scanty 

 number. This had strongly impressed me, and it suddenly 

 flashed upon me that all animals are necessarily thus kept 



