x] OF EVOLUTION 129 



great reluctance in the hands of his friends Lyell 

 and Hooker. They took the wise course of reading 

 Wallace's paper at the Linnean Society on July 1st, 

 1858, at the same time giving extracts from Darwin's 

 memoir written in 1844, and the abstract of a letter 

 written by Darwin in 1857 to the distinguished 

 American botanist, Asa Gray. This solution of the 

 difficulty happily met with the complete approval of 

 Wallace ; and, as the result of the episode, Darwin 

 came to the conclusion that it would not be wise to 

 defer full publication of his views, until the extensive 

 work on which he was engaged could be finished, but 

 an ' abstract* of them must be prepared and issued 

 with as little delay as possible. 



For a time there was hesitation, as Darwin's 

 correspondence with Lyell and Hooker shows, be- 

 tween the two plans of sending this ' abstract ' to the 

 Linnean Society in a series of papers or of making 

 it an independent book. But Darwin entertained an 

 invincible dislike to submitting his various conclusions 

 to the judgment of the Council of a Society, and, in 

 the end, the preparation of the ' Abstract* in the 

 form of a book of moderate size, was decided on. 

 This was the origin of Darwin's great work. 



The sickness at Down had led to the abandonment 

 of the house for a time, and, three weeks after the 

 reading of the joint paper at the Linnean Society, 

 we find Darwin temporarily established at Sandown, 



j. E. 9 



