THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 173 



ditional testimony to his penetration. Professor 

 Grant, Mr. Patrick Matthew, Von Buch, the author of 

 the * Vestiges/ D'Halloy, and others, by the enuncia- 

 tion of opinions more or less clear and correct, showed 

 that the question had been fermenting long prior to 

 the year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace 

 simultaneously, but independently, placed their closely 

 concurrent views before the Linnean Society.* 



These papers were followed in 1859 by the publica- 

 tion of the first edition of the ' Origin of Species.' All 

 great things come slowly to the birth. Copernicus, as I 

 informed you, pondered his great work for thirty-three 

 years. Newton for nearly twenty years kept the idea 

 of Gravitation before his mind; for twenty years also 

 he dwelt upon his discovery of Fluxions, p.nd doubtless 

 would have continued to make it the object of his 

 private thought, had he not found Leibnitz upon his 

 track. Darwin for two-and-twenty years pondered the 

 problem of the origin of species, and doubtless he would 

 have continued to do so had he not found Wallace upon 

 his track, f A concentrated, but full and powerful, 

 epitome of his labours was the consequence. The book 

 was by no means an easy one; and probably not one 

 in every score of those who then attacked it, had read 

 its pages through, or were competent to grasp their 

 significance if they had. I do not say this merely to 

 discredit them: for there were in those days some 

 really eminent scientific men, entirely raised above the 

 heat of popular prejudice, and willing to accept any 



In 1855 Mr. Herbert Spencer (' Principles of Psychology,' 2nd 

 edit. vol. i. p. 465) expressed 'the belief that life under all its 

 forms has arisen by an unbroken evolution, and through the in- 

 strumentality of what are called natural causes.' This was my 

 belief also at that time. 



f The behaviour of Mr. Wallace in relation to this subject has 

 been disnifled in the highest dejrrec. 



