The Discovery of Natural Selection 



that he agrees with ' almost every word ' of my paper. He 

 is now preparing his great work on ^ Species and Varieties,' 

 for which he has been preparing materials for twenty years. 

 He may save me the trouble of writing more on my hypo- 

 thesis, by proving that there is no difference in nature 

 between the origin of species and of varieties; or he may 

 give me trouble by arriving at another conclusion ; but, 

 at all events, his facts will be given for me to work upon. 

 Your collections and my own will furnish most valuable 

 material to illustrate and prove the universal application 

 of the hypothesis. The connection between the succession 

 of affinities and the geographical distribution of a group, 

 worked out species by species, has never yet been shown 

 as we shall be able to show it.'' 



^^ This letter proves," writes Walla€e,* ** that at this 

 time I had not the least idea of the nature of Darwin's 

 proposed work nor of the definite conclusions he had 

 arrived at, nor had I myself any expectations of a com- 

 plete solution of the great problem to which my paper was 

 merely the prelude. Yet less than two months later that 

 solution flashed upon me, and to a large extent marked out 

 a different line of work from that which I had up to this 

 time anticipated. ... In other parts of this letter I refer 

 to the work I hoped to do myself in describing, cata- 

 loguing, and working out the distribution of my insects. I 

 had in fact been bitten by the passion for species and their 

 description, and if neither Darwin nor myself had hit upon 

 ^ Natural Selection,' I might have spent the best years of 

 my life in this comparatively profitless work. But the 

 new ideas swept all this away." 



This letter was finished after his arrival at Ternate, 

 and a few weeks later he was prostrated by a sharp attack 

 of intermittent fever which obliged him to take a prolonged 



» " My Life." I. 359. 



107 



