Cfc II] * ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 41 



Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views 

 pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale three or 

 four times as extensive as that which was afterwards followed 

 in my Origin of Species ; yet it was only an abstract of the 

 materials which I had collected, and I got through about half 

 the work on this scale. But my plans were overthrown, for 

 early in the summer of 1858 Mr. Wallace, who was then in the 

 Malay archipelago, sent me an essay On the Tendency of 

 Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type ; and this 

 essay contained exactly the same theory as mine. Mr. Wallace 

 expressed the wish that if I thought well of his essay, I should 

 send it to Lyell for perusal. 



The circumstances under which I consented at the request 

 of Lyell and Hooker to allow of an abstract from my MS., 

 together with a letter to Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857, 

 to be published at the same time with Wallace's Essay, are 

 given in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 

 1858, p. 45. I was at first very unwilling to consent, as I 

 thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, 

 for I did not then know how generous and noble was his 

 disposition. The extract from my MS. and the letter to Asa 

 Gray had neither been intended for publication, and were 

 badly written. Mr. Wallace's essay, on the other hand, was 

 admirably expressed and quite clear. Nevertheless, our joint 

 productions excited very little attention, and the only published 

 notice of them which I can remember was by Professor 

 Haughton of Dublin, whose verdict was that all that was new 

 in them was false, and what was true was old. This shows 

 how necessary it is that any new view should be explained at 

 considerable length in order to arouse public attention. 



In September 1858 I set to work by the strong advice of 

 Lyell and Hooker to prepare a volume on the transmutation of 

 species, but was often interrupted by ill-health, and short 

 visits to Dr. Lane's delightful hydropathic establishment at 

 Moor Park. I abstracted the MS. begun on a much larger 

 scale in 1856, and completed the volume on the same reduced 

 scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten days' hard labour 

 It was published under the title of the Origin of Species, in 

 November 1859. Though considerably added to and corrected 

 in the later editions, it has remained substantially the same 

 book. 



It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the 

 first highly successful. The first small edition of 1250 copies 

 was sold on the day of publication, and a second edition of 

 3000 copies soon afterwards. Sixteen thousand copies have 



