IN MEMORIAM : CHARLES DARWIN 



Mr. Darwin (as to the man most likely to under- 

 stand him) a paper, in which he sketched the out- 

 lines of a theory identical with that upon which 

 Mr. Darwin had so long been at work. The 

 same sequence of observed facts and inferences 

 that had led Mr. Darwin to the discovery of 

 natural selection and its consequences had led 

 Mr. Wallace to the very threshold of the same 

 discovery ; but in Mr. Wallace's mind the the- 

 ory had by no means been wrought out to the 

 same degree of completeness to which it had 

 been wrought in the mind of Mr. Darwin. In 

 the preface to his charming book on " Natural 

 Selection," Mr. Wallace, with rare modesty and 

 candour, acknowledges that, whatever value his 

 speculations may have had, they have been 

 utterly surpassed in richness and cogency of 

 proof by those of Mr. Darwin. This is no 

 doubt true, and Mr. Wallace has done such good 

 work in further illustration of the theory that he 

 can well afford to rest content with the second 

 place in the first announcement of it. 



The coincidence, however, between Mr. Wal- 

 lace's conclusions and those of Mr. Darwin was 

 very remarkable. But, after all, coincidences of 

 this sort have not been uncommon in the history 

 of scientific inquiry. Nor is it at all surprising 

 that they should occur now and then, when we 

 remember that a great and pregnant discovery 

 must always be concerned with some question 

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