Charles Darwin, Alfred Wallace 273 



Russell Wallace, and was laid before the Society by Sir 

 Joseph Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell. The history of this 

 Paper is well known, but it is so creditable to both these 

 high-minded and honourable men that I may briefly repeat 

 it, and in doing so I cannot do better than use the noble 

 words 1 of Wallace : 



"The one fact," said Wallace, "that connects me 

 with Darwin, and which, I am happy to say, has never 

 been doubted, is that the idea of what is now termed 

 ' natural selection ' or * survival of the fittest,' together 

 with its far-reaching consequences, occurred to us 

 independently, and was first jointly announced before this 

 Society fifty years ago. 



" But what is often forgotten by the press and the 

 public is, that the idea occurred to Darwin in October 

 1838, nearly twenty years earlier than to myself (in 

 February 1855); and that during the whole of that 

 twenty years he had been laboriously collecting evidence 

 from the vast mass of literature of Biology, of Horti- 

 culture, and of Agriculture; as well as himself carrying 

 out ingenious experiments and original observations, 

 the extent of which is indicated by the range of subjects 

 discussed in his ^Origin of Species,' and especially in that 

 wonderful store-house of knowledge his ' Animals and 

 Plants under Domestication,' almost the whole materials 

 for which works had been collected, and to a large extent 

 systematized, during that twenty years. 



" So far back as 1844, at a time when I had hardly 

 thought of any serious study of nature, Darwin had 

 written an outline of his views, which he communicated 

 to his friends, Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. (now Sir Joseph) 

 Hooker. The former strongly urged him to publish an 

 abstract of his theory as soon as possible, lest some other 

 person might precede him but he always refused till 

 he had got together the whole of the materials for his 

 intended great work. Then, at last, LyelTs prediction 

 was fulfilled, and, without any apparent warning, my 

 letter, with the enclosed Essay, came upon him, like a 



1 The Darwin-Wallace Celebration. The Linnean Society, London, 

 1908, pp. 5-7. 



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