Ill 



DARWIN'S THEORY 



ON Wednesday, the 1st of July 1908, half a century 

 had passed since Darwin's Theory of the Origin of 

 Species was made known to the world. Fifty years have 

 now been completed since that immortal book, The Origin 

 of Species^ was published, and a hundred years since 

 Charles Darwin was born. 



It is not every one who is in a position to understand 

 how great and momentous was the occasion when Sir 

 Charles Lyell and Dr. Joseph Hooker communicated to 

 the Linnean Society of London, on the 1st of July 1858, 

 two papers, one by Charles Darwin, the other by Alfred 

 Russel Wallace, under the common title, "On the Tendency 

 of Species to form Varieties : and on the Perpetuation of 

 Varieties and Species by Natural means of Selection." The 

 reason for this conjoint communication to the Linnean 

 Society was that Darwin, who had been working for years 

 at the subject, and had already, in 1842, drawn up a 

 statement of his theory, not for publication, but for the 

 consideration and criticism of his friend Hooker un- 

 expectedly received from Alfred Russel Wallace, who 

 was, and had been for some years, away in the Malay 

 Archipelago a manuscript of an essay on the origin of 

 species, containing views identical with his own, and even 

 phrases similar to those he had himself found it necessary 



