ix] OF EVOLUTION 113 



the case he was completely forestalled in the 

 publication of his theory. The letter and paper 

 arrived at a sad time for Darwin he was at the 

 moment very ill, there was 'scarlet fever raging in 

 his family, to which an infant son had succumbed 

 on the previous day, and a daughter was ill with 

 diphtheria 114 .' Darwin at once wrote hurriedly to 

 Lyell enclosing the essay and saying : 



* 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, whatever it 

 may amount to, will be smashed, though my book, if it 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 to say 116 .' 



And Wallace what was the line taken by him in 

 the unfortunate complication that had thus arisen ? 

 From the very first his action was all that is generous 

 and noble. Not only did he, from the first, entirely 

 acquiesce in the course taken by Lyell and Hooker, 

 but, writing in 1870, when the fame of Darwin's work 

 had reached its full height, he said : 



*I have felt all my life and I still feel, the most sincere 



satisfaction that Mr Darwin had been at work long before me, 



and that it was not left for me to attempt to write The Origin of 



Species. I have long since measured my own strength and 



J. K. 8 



