ORIGIN OF THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION 397 



tion," almost the whole materials for which works had been collected, 

 and to a large extent systematized, during that twenty years. 



So far back as 1844, at a time when I had hardly thought of any 

 serious study of nature, Darwin had written an outline of his vieAvs, 

 which he communicated to his friends Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. (now 

 Sir Joseph) Hooker. The former strongly urged him to publish an 

 abstract of his theory as soon as possible, lest some other person might 

 precede him — but he always refused till he had got together the whole 

 of the materials for his intended great work. Then, at last, Lyell's 

 prediction was fulfilled, and, without any apparent warning, my letter, 

 with the enclosed essay, came upon him, like a thunderbolt from a cloud- 

 less sky ! This forced him to what he considered a premature publicity, 

 and his two friends undertook to have our two papers read before this 

 society. 



How different from this long study and preparation — this philo- 

 sophic caution — this determination not to make known his fruitful 

 conception till he could back it up by OA^erwhelming proofs — was my 

 own conduct. The idea came to me, as it had come to Darwin, in a 

 sudden flash of insight : it was thought out in a few hours — was written 

 down with such a sketch of its various applications and developments as 

 occurred to me at the moment, — then copied on thin letter-paper and 

 sent off to Darwin- — all within one week. I was then (as often since) 

 the " young man in a hurry " ; he, the painstaking and patient student, 

 seeking ever the full demonstration of the truth that he had discovered, 

 rather than to achieve immediate personal fame. 



Such being the actual facts of tlie case, I should have had no cause 

 for complaint if the respective shares of Darwin and myself in regard 

 to the elucidation of nature's method of organic development had been 

 thenceforth estimated as lieing, roughly, proportional to the time we 

 had each bestowed upon it when it was thus first given to the world — • 

 that is to say, as twenty years is to one week. For, he had already made 

 it his own. If the persuasion of his friends had prevailed with him, 

 and he had published his theory, after ten years' — fifteen years' — or 

 even eighteen years' elaboration of it — / should have had no part in 

 it whatever, and he would have been at once recognized, and should be 

 ever recognized, as the sole and undisputed discoverer and patient inves- 

 tigator of the great law of " natural selection " in all its far-reaching 

 consequences. 



It was really a singular piece of good luck that gave to me any 

 share whatever in the discovery. During the first half of the nineteenth 

 century (and even earlier) many great biological thinkers and workers 

 had been pondering over the problem and had even suggested ingenious 

 but inadequate solutions. Some of these men were among the greatest 

 intellects of our time, yet, till Darwin, all had failed ; and it was only 



