WHAT LED TO THE WORK AND THE SUCCESS OF IT. 175 



in the excitement and general attention which must be 

 attributed to Mr. Wallace. Mr. Darwin himself has 

 again and again come to the front to declare that Mr. 

 Wallace " has arrived at almost exactly the same general 

 conclusions " as himself " on the origin of species, that 

 " the theory of Natural Selection is promulgated by Mr. 

 Wallace with admirable force and clearness." On the 

 Waterloo day of 1858, he encloses to Lyell a communi- 

 cation from Mr. Wallace, in which a theory to his mind so 

 very similar to his own (as yet unpublished) seems to have 

 taken away his very breath in surprise. " I never saw a 

 more striking coincidence," he cries ; " if Wallace had my 

 MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made 

 a better short abstract ! Even his terms now stand as 

 heads of my chapters." Of course for credence and 

 acceptance, whether before the court of the law or the 

 court of the public, it is an enormous advance when a 

 second witness has come forward with the same story as 

 a first. A first man is himself, in fact, a new man when 

 lie is supported by a second. That, then, is what Mr. 

 Wallace was to Mr. Darwin ; and the public interest, 

 consequently, went on increasing in a more than geo- 

 metrical ratio. 



