ORIGIN OF WALLACE'S ESSAY. <S9 



my theory would be new to him, because it seemed to me to 

 settle a great deal. The immediate result of my paper was 

 that Darwin was induced at once to prepare for publication his 

 book on the Origin of Species in the condensed form in which 

 it appeared, instead of waiting an indefinite number of years to 

 complete a work on a much larger scale which he had partly 

 written, but which in all probability would not have carried 

 conviction to so many persons in so short a time. I feel much 

 satisfaction in having thus aided in bringing about the publica- 

 tion of this celebrated book, and with the ample recognition 

 by Darwin himself of my independent discovery of ' natural 

 selection.' (See Orirjin of Species^ 6th ed., introduction, 

 p. 1, and Life and Letters, vol. ii., chap, iv., pp. 115-129 

 and 145)." 



A very similar account, differing in a few unimpor- 

 tant details from that quoted above, was written 

 December 3rd, 1887, by Wallace to Professor Newton, 

 and is published in the abridged " Life and Letters of 

 Charles Darwin " (1892 ; pp.189, 190). At the con- 

 clusion Wallace says : — 



". . . . I had the idea of working it out, so far as I was 

 able, when I returned home, not at all expecting that Darwin 

 had so long anticipated me. I can truly say now^ as I said 

 many years ago, that I am glad it was so ; for I have not the 

 love of work, experiment and detail that was so pre-eminent in 

 Darwin, and without which anything I could have written 

 would never have convinced the world." 



It is of great interest to learn that Wallace as well 

 as Darwin was directed to natural selection by Malthus' 

 Essay. Hence, as the late Professor Milnes Marshall 

 has pointed out (Lectures on the Darwinian Theory, 

 pp. 212, 213), the laws of the multiplication and 

 extinction of man suggested to both naturalists 



