MR. DARWIN’S CRITICS . 185 
teviewer cannot even state the history of the 
vetrine of natural selection without an oblique 
: entirely unjustifiable attempt to depreciate 
. Darwin. “To Mr. Darwin,” says he, “and 
(th rough Mr. Wallace’s reticence) to Mr. Darwin 
. alone , is due the credit of having first brought it 
P prominently forward and demonstrated its truth.” 
No one can less desire than I do, to throw a doubt 
upon Mr. Wallace’s originality, or to question his 
elaim to the honour of being one of the originators 
) f the doctrine of natural selection ; but the state- 
vent that Mr. Darwin has the ‘dole credit of 
riginting the doctrine because of Mr. Wallace’s 
sticence is simply ridiculous. The proof of this 
, in the first place, afforded by Mr. Wallace him- 
acl, whose noble freedom from petty jealousy in 
fe nis matter smaller folk would do well to imitate, 
and who writes thus :—“TI have felt all my life, 
) and I still feel, the most sincere satisfaction 
‘that Mr. Darwin had been at work long before 
/ me and that it was not left for me to attempt to 
_ write the ‘Origin of Species.’ I have long since 
leasured my own strength, and know well that it 
. eo be quite unequal] to that task.” So that if 
re was any reticence at all in the matter, it was 
. Darwin’s reticence during the long twenty 
years of study which intervened Between the con- 
a and the publication of his theory, which 
save Mr. Wallace the chance of being an indepen- 
dent discoverer of the importance of natural 
