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carefully collecting in England all the knowledge he could 

 upon the subject. But he did not publish it, for he wanted 

 more and more evidence ; and as Newton waited sixteen 

 years for more convincing proof before he announced his 

 theory of gravitation, so Mr. Darwin would have delayed 

 much longer than he did if a remarkable circumstance had 

 not obliged him to speak. 



It happened that while Mr. Darwin was working in Eng- 

 land, another great naturalist, Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, who 

 was then in the Malay Archipelago, also thought that he 

 had discovered the way in which animals are made to vary 

 in the course of long ages. He sent home a paper on the 

 subject, and, though he had never heard of Mr. Darwin's 

 theory, it was found that he had worked out the same result 

 sometimes almost in the same words. 



Sir C. Lyell and Dr. Hooker of Kew were so much 

 struck with the fact that these two men had solved the 

 problem almost precisely in the same way, that they begged 

 Mr. Darwin to allow one of his papers, written many years 

 before, to be published with Mr. Wallace's, and the two 

 essays were read the same evening, July i, 1858, at the 

 Linnaean Society. A year later, in November 1859, Mr. Dar- 

 win's famous work, * '1 he Origin of Species,' was published. 



* The Theory of Natural Selection,' or the choosing out 

 by natural causes of those plants and animals which are 

 best fitted to live and multiply, rests upon a few simple facts 

 which you can understand. 



Firstly, all living beings multiply so rapidly that there 

 would be neither room nor food enough upon the earth for 

 them if they were all to live ; therefore immense numbers 

 must die young, and those will live the longest and have 

 children to follow them who are best fitted for the kind of 

 life they have to lead. 



