90 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



come, and 1 am almost convinced (quite contrary to the opin- 

 ion that I started with) that species are not (it is like confess- 

 ino" a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck 

 nonsense of a * tendency to progression,' * adaptations from 

 the slow willing of animals,' etc! But the conclusions I am 

 led to are not widely different from his ; though the means of 

 change are wholly so." This quotation well indicates the 

 general attitude of the time toward the immutability of 

 species, to doubt which was high crime. 



Darwin's reluctance to publish his theory until he had col- 

 lected a vast amount of evidence came near costing him his 

 right to priority. In 1858, twenty years after the idea of 

 Natural Selection had occurred to him, during which time he 

 had devoted all of his energy to gathering every possible fact 

 and observation in support of his doctrine, he received an essay 

 from his friend, the naturalist-traveler, Alfred Russel Wal- 

 lace, who was then in the Malay archipelago. Wallace's paper 

 contained an outline of a theory of Natural Selection which, 

 though differing in certain points, was essentially the same as 

 that which Darwin had long before arrived at. Under per- 

 suasion of his friends Hooker and Lyell, Darwin consented to 

 give publicity to his theory and on June 30, 1858, a modest 

 abstract, consisting of his earlier notes, together with Wal- 

 lace's essay, appeared in print in the Journal of the Linnean 

 Society. In the year following (1859) was published the 

 most important of his writings, ** The Origin of Species by 

 Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored 

 Races in the Struggle for Life," and in rapid succession after- 

 wards the complete series of his works, representing the 

 results of many years of labor. Those which bear more 

 directly upon the theory of descent are **The Variation of 

 Animals and Plants under Domestication," arid ** The 

 Descent of Man," the latter applying the theory of Natural 

 Selection to man. 



So completely had evolutionary theories been forgotten that 

 Darwin's work was almost universally regarded as something 

 entirely new, and at once it provoked the most violent oppo- 

 sition, to some extent from scientific men, but mainly from 

 the clergy. Only a few men of science placed themselves at 



