1859-1863] WALLACE 119 



of extinct to recent inhabitants of South America first led me Letter 71 

 to the subject : especially the case of the Galapagos Islands. 

 I hope to go to press in the early part of next month. It 

 will be a small volume of about five hundred pages or so. 

 I will of course send you a copy. I forget whether I told 

 you that Hooker, who is our best British botanist and 

 perhaps the best in the world, is a full convert, and is now 

 going immediately to publish his confession of faith ; and 

 I expect daily to see proof-sheets. 1 Huxley is changed, and 

 believes in mutation of species : whether a convert to us, 

 I do not quite know. We shall live to see all the younger 

 men converts. My neighbour and an excellent naturalist, 

 J. Lubbock, is an enthusiastic convert. I see that you are 

 doing great work in the Archipelago ; and most heartily do 

 I sympathise with you. For God's sake take care of your 

 health. There have been few such noble labourers in the 

 cause of Natural Science as you are. 



I'.S. You cannot tell how I admire your spirit, in *he 

 manner in which you have taken all that was done about 

 publishing all our papers. I had actually written a letter to 

 you, stating that I would not publish anything before you 

 had published. I had not sent that letter to the post when 

 I received one from Lyell and Hooker, urging me to send 

 some MS. to them, and allow them to act as they thought 

 fair and honestly to both of us ; and I did so. 



The following is the passage from the Introduction to the Origin of 

 Species, referred to in the first paragraph of the above letter. 



" My work is now nearly finished ; but as it will take me 

 two or three years more to complete it, and as my health is 

 far from strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract. 

 I have more especially been induced to do this, as Mr. 

 Wallace, who is now studying the Natural History of the 

 Malay Archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly the same 

 general conclusions that I have on the origin of species. 

 Last year he sent to me a memoir on this subject, with a 

 request that I would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, who 

 sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published in the 



1 Tlie Flora of Australia, etc., an Introductory Essay to the Flora of 

 Tasmania. London, 1859. 



