a 

 a 



RISE OF EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT 421 



though Mr. Darwin has for many years past been repeatedly 

 urged by us to do so, and both authors having now unreserv- 

 edly placed their papers in our hands, we think it would 

 best promote the interests of science that a selection from 

 them should be laid before the Linnaean Society. 



Taken in the order of their dates, they consist of: 

 i. Extracts from a MS. work on species, by Mr. Dar- 

 win, which was sketched in 1839 and copied in 1844, when 

 the copy was read by Dr. Hooker, and its contents afterward 

 communicated to Sir Charles Lyell. The first part is devoted 

 to The Variation of Organic Beings under Domestication and 

 in their Natural State; and the second chapter of that part, 

 from which we propose to read to the Society the extracts 

 referred to, is headed On the Variation of Organic Beings in 

 a State of Nature ; on the Natural Means oj Selection; on the 

 Comparison oj Domestic Races and True Species. 



"2. An abstract of a private letter addressed to Professor 

 Asa Gray, of Boston, U. S., in October, 1857, by Mr. Darwin, 

 in which he repeats his views, and which shows that these 

 remained unaltered from 1839 to 1857. 



"3. An essay by Mr. Wallace, entitled On the Tendency 

 of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type. 

 This was written at Ternate in February, 1858, for the 

 perusal of his friend and correspondent, Mr. Darwin, and 

 sent to him with the expressed wish that it should be for- 

 warded to Sir Charles Lyell, if Mr. Darwin thought it suffi- 

 ciently novel and interesting. So highly did Mr. Darwin 

 appreciate the value of the views therein set forth that he 

 proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. 

 Wallace's consent to allow the essay to be published as soon 

 as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided Air. 

 Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was strongly 

 inclined to do (in favor of Air. Wallace), the memoir which 

 he had himself written on the same subject, and which, as 



