CHARLES DARWIN. 451 



1842, but the substance had been communicated to the Geological 

 Society soon after his return to England ; his papers on " Volcanic 

 Islands," on the " Distribution of Erratic Boulders and Contempora- 

 neous Unstratified Deposits in South America," on the " Fine Dust 

 which falls on Vessels in the Atlantic Ocean," and some other geological 

 as well as zoological researches, were published previously to 1851. 

 Between that year and 1855 he brought out his most considerable 

 contributions to systematic zoology, his monographs on the Cirripedia 

 and the Fossil Lepadidoe. 



We come to the first publication of what is now known as Dar- 

 winism. It consists of a sketch of the doctrine of Natural Selec- 

 tion, which was drawn up in the year 1839, and copied and commu- 

 nicated to Messi's. Lyell and Hooker in 1844, being a part of the 

 manuscript of a chapter in his " Origin of Species ; " also of a private 

 letter addressed to the writer of this memorial in October, 1857, — 

 the publication of which (in the Journal of the Proceedings of the 

 Linnean Society, Zoological Part, iii. 45-53, issued in the summer of 

 1858) was caused by the reception by Darwin himself of a letter from 

 Mr. AVallace, inclosing a brief and strikingly similar essay on the same 

 subject, entitled " On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely 

 from the Original Type." Mr. Darwin's action upon the reception of 

 this rival essay was characteristic. His own work was not yet ready, 

 and the fact that it had been for years in preparation was known only 

 to the persons above mentioned. He proposed to have the pajoer of 

 Mr. "Wallace (who was then in the Moluccas) published at once, in 

 anticipation of his own leisurely prepared volume ; and it w^as only 

 under the solicitation of his friends cognizant of the case that his 

 own early sketch and the corroboratory letter were printed alqjig 

 with it. 



The precursory essays of Darwin and Wallace, published in the 

 Proceedings of a scientific society, can hardly have been read except 

 by a narrow circle of naturalists. Most thoughtful investigating 

 naturalists were then in a measure prepared for them. But toward 

 the close of the following year (in the autumn of 1859) appeared the 

 volume " On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or 

 the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for .Life," the 

 first and most notable of that series of duodecimos which have been 

 read and discussed in almost every cultured language, and which 

 within the lifetime of their author have changed the face and in some 

 respect the character of natural history, — indeed have almost as 

 deeply affected many other lines of investigation and thought. 



