Alfred Russel Wallace 



tion as to its bearing on the whole theory. As the ^^ result 

 seemed to be of some importance/- it was sent, as already 

 mentioned, to the Amials and Magazine of Natural Uistory 

 as one of the leading scientific journals in England. 



In the light of future events it is not surprising that 

 Huxley (many years later), in referring to this '' powerful 

 essay,'' adds : '^ On reading it afresh I have been astonished 

 to recollect how small was the impression it made." 



As this earliest contribution by Wallace to the doctrine 

 of Evolution' is of peculiar historical value, and has not 

 been so fully recognised as it undoubtedly deserves, and 

 is now almost inaccessible, it will be useful to indicate in 

 his own words the clear line of argument put forth by 

 him two years before his second essay with which many 

 readers are more familiar. He begins : 



Every naturalist who has directed his attention to the 

 subject of the geographical distribution of animals and 

 plants must have been interested in the singular facts 

 which it presents. Man}^ of these facts are quite different 

 from what would have been anticipated, and have hitherto 

 been considered as highly curious but quite inexplicable. 

 None of the explanations attempted from the time of Lin- 

 naeus are now considered at all satisfactory ; none of them 

 have given a cause sufficient to account for the facts 

 known at the time, or comprehensive enough to include 

 all the new facts which have since been and are daily 

 being added. Of late years, however, a great light has 

 been thrown upon the subject by geological investigations, 

 which have shown that the present state of the earth, and 

 the organisms now inhabiting it, are but the last stage of 

 a long and uninterrupted series of changes which it has 

 undergone, and consequently, that to endeavour to explain 

 and account for its present condition without any refer- 

 ence to those changes (as has frequently been done) must 



1 " On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of Species." — Ann. 

 and Mag. of Natural History, 2nd Series, 1855, xvi. 184. 



94 



