CHAPTER VII 



DARWINISM 



75. Darwin and Wallace. — The question of the 

 method of evolution continued to be debated, with no 

 satisfactory solution in sight, until 1859,^ when Charles 

 Darwin published the greatest book of the nineteenth 

 century, and one of the greatest in the world's history, 

 the Origin of Species. ^ This book was the result of over 20 

 years of careful observation and thought. It consisted 

 of the elaboration of two principal theories: (i) that 

 evolution is the method of creation; (2) that natural 

 selection is the method of evolution. 



By a strange coincidence Alfred Russell Wallace, also 

 by many years of thoughtful observation, reading, and 

 reflection, had independently formulated the conception 

 of natural selection in far-off Ternate, and embodied 

 his ideas in a paper which he sent to Darwin for the purpose 

 of having it read before the Royal Society. The paper, 

 with its accompanying letter, reached Darwin on June 

 18, 1858, while the latter was engaged in writing out 

 his own views on a scale three or four times as extensive as 

 that afterward followed in the Origin of Species. As a 

 result of the unsurpassed magnanimity of the two men, 

 and their generous attitude toward each other, it was 



1 This date should be memorized. It is one of the most important 

 in the whole history of human thought. 



= The full title of the book was "The Origin of Species by Natural 

 Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for 

 Life." 



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