89 



CHAPTER III. 



WORK ON 'MAN/ 

 1864-18/0. 



flN the autobiographical chapter (Vol. I. p. 93), my father gives 

 the circumstances which led to his writing the ' Descent of 

 Man.' He states that his collection of facts, begun in 1837 or 

 1838, was continued for many years without any definite idea of 

 publishing on the subject. The following letter to Mr. Wallace 

 shows that in the period of ill-health and depression about 

 1864 he despaired of ever being able to do so :] 



C. Darwin to A. R. Wallace. 



Down, [May ?] 28 [1864]. 



DEAR WALLACE, I am so much better that I have just 

 finished a paper for Linnean Society ; * but I am not yet at all 

 strong, I felt much disinclination to write, and therefore you 

 must forgive me for not having sooner thanked you for your 

 paper on 'Man/f received on the nth. But first let me say 

 that I have hardly ever in my life been more struck by any 

 paper than that on ' Variation/ &c. &c., in the Reader.% I feel 

 sure that such papers will do more for the spreading of 



* On the three forms, c., of J Reader, Pup. 16,1864. "On the 



Lythrum. Phenomena of Variation," &c. 



t ' Anthropological Review,' Abstract of a paper read before the 



March 1864. Linnean Society, Mar. 17, 1864. 



