XL] MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 301 



reticence) to Mr. Darwin alone, is due the credit of 

 having first brought it prominently forward and demon- 

 strated its truth." No one can less desire than I do, 

 to throw a doubt upon Mr. Wallace's originality, or to 

 question his claim to the honour of being one of the- 

 originators of the doctrine of natural .selection ; but the 

 statement that Mr. Darwin has the sole credit of origi- 

 nating the doctrine because of Mr. Wallace's reticence is 

 simply ridiculous. The proof of this is, in the first 

 place, afforded by Mr. Wallace himself, whose noble 

 freedom from petty jealousy in this matter, smaller folk 

 would do well to imitate ; and who writes thus : " I 

 have felt all my life, and I still feel, the most sincere 

 satisfaction that Mr. Darwin had been at work long 

 before me, and that it was not left for me to attempt 

 to write the 'Origin of Species/ . I have long since 

 measured my own strength, and know well that it would 

 be quite unequal to that task." So that if there was 

 any reticence at all in the matter, it was Mr. Darwin's 

 reticence during the long twenty years of study which 

 intervened between the conception and the publication 

 of his theory, which gave Mr. Wallace the chance of 

 being an independent discoverer of the importance of 

 natural selection. And, finally, if it be recollected that 

 Mr. Darwin's and Mr. Wallace's essays were published 

 simultaneously in the Journal of the Linncean Society 

 for 1858, it follows that the Ee viewer, while obliquely 

 depreciating Mr. Darwin's deserts, has in reality awarded 

 to him a priority which, in legal strictness, does not 

 exist. 



Mr. Mivart, whose opinions so often concur with those 

 of the Quarterly Reviewer, puts the case in a way, 

 which I much regret to be obliged to say, is, in my 

 judgment, quite as incorrect ; though the injustice may 

 be less glaring. He says that the theory of natural 



