114 THE COMING OF EVOLUTION [CH. ix 



know well that it would be quite unequal to that task. For 

 abler men than myself may confess, that they have not that 

 untiring patience in accumulating, and that wonderful skill in 

 using, large masses of facts of the most varied kind, that wide 

 and accurate physiological knowledge, that acuteness in devising 

 and skill in carrying out experiments, and that admirable style 

 of composition, at once clear, persuasive and judicial, qualities 

 which in their harmonious combination mark out Mr Darwin as 

 the man, perhaps of all men now living, best fitted for the great 

 work he has undertaken and accomplished 116 .' 



And fifty years after the joint publication of the 

 theory of Natural Selection to the Linnean Society 

 he said : 



' 1 was then (as often since) the " young man in a hurry," he ' 

 (Darwin) ' the painstaking and patient student, seeking ever the 

 full demonstration of the truth he had discovered, rather than to 

 achieve immediate personal fame 117 .' 



And when he referred to the respective shares of 

 Darwin and himself to the credit of having brought 

 forward the theory of natural selection, he actually 

 suggests as a fair proportion 'twenty years to one 

 week ' those being the periods each had devoted to 

 the subject 118 ! 



Never surely was such a noble example of 

 personal abnegation ! We admire the generosity, 

 though we cannot accept the estimate, for do we not 

 know that, for at least half the period of Darwin's 

 patient quest, Wallace had spent in deeply pondering 

 upon the same great question? 



