•ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 



71 



I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, 

 that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought 

 came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to 

 make a memorandum of it without fail and at once ; for I 

 had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were 

 far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable 

 ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised 

 against my views which I had not at least noticed and at- 

 tempted to answer. 



It has sometimes been said that the success of the * Ori- 

 gin ' proved " that the subject was in the air," or " that men's 

 minds were prepared for it." I do not think that this is 

 strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, 

 and never happened to come across a single one who seemed 

 to doubt about the permanence of species. Even Lyell and 

 Hooker, though they would listen with interest to me, never 

 seemed to agree. I tried once or twice to explain to able 

 men what I meant by Natural Selection, but signally failed. 

 What I believe was strictly true is that innumerable well- 

 observed facts were stored in the minds of naturalists ready 

 to take their proper places as soon as any theory which would 

 receive them was sufficiently explained. Another element in 

 the success of the book was its moderate size ; and this I owe 

 to the appearance of Mr. Wallace's essay ; had I published 

 on the scale in which I began to write in 1856, the book 

 would have been four or five times as large as the ' Origin,' 

 and very few would have had the patience to read it. 



I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 

 1839, when the theory was clearly conceived, to 1859 ; ^^^ I 

 lost nothing by it, for I cared very little whether men at- 

 tributed most originality to me or Wallace ; and his essay no ' 

 doubt aided in the reception of the theory. I was forestalled 

 in only one important point, which my vanity has always 

 made me regret, namely, the explanation by means of the 

 Glacial period of the presence of the same species of plants 

 and of some few animals on distant mountain summits and 

 in the arctic regions. This view pleased me so much that I 



