Masterpieces of Science 



and very few would have had the patience 

 to read it. 



1 gained much by my delay in publishing 

 from about, 1S39, when the theory was clearly 

 conceived, to 1859; and 1 lost nothing by it, 

 for 1 cared very little whether men attributed 

 most originality to me or "Wallace; and his 

 essay no doubt aided in the reception of the 

 theory. L was forestalled in only one important 

 point, which my vanity has always made me 

 regret, namely, the explanation by means 

 of the Glacial period of the presence of the 

 same species of plants and of some few animals 

 on distant mountain summits and in the arctic 

 regions. This view pleased me so much that 1 

 wrote it out in cxicnso, and 1 believe that it 

 was read by Hooker some years before E. 

 Forbes published in 1S46 his celebrated memoir 

 on the subject. In the very few points in which 

 we differed, I still think that I was in the right. . 

 I have never, of course, alluded in print to my 

 having independently worked out this view. 



Hardly any point gave me so much satisfac- 

 tion when I was at work on the "Origin," as the 

 explanation of the wide difference in many 

 classes between the embryo and the adult ani- 

 mal, and of the close resemblance of the em- 

 bryos within the same class. Xo notice of this 

 point was taken, as far as I remember, in the 

 early reviews of the "Origin," and 1 recollect 

 expressing my surprise on this head in a letter 

 to Asa Gray. Within late years several re- 

 42 



