14 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



on the Council and nominated as Vice-President 

 in place of Eobert Brown. 



I cannot resist the temptation to reprint from 

 the memorial volume issued by the Linnean 

 Society of London some passages in the address 

 which A. K. Wallace felt constrained to deliver 

 on July 1, 1908, protesting against the too great 

 credit which he beheved had been assigned to 

 himself. After describing Darwin's discovery of 

 Natural Selection and the twenty years devoted 

 to confirmation and patient research, Wallace 

 continued : — 



' How different from this long study and preparation — 

 this phDosophic caution — this determination not to make 

 known his fruitful conception till he could back it up by 

 overwhelming proofs — was my own conduct. The idea 

 came to me, as it had come to Darwin, in a sudden flash of 

 insight: it was thought out in a few hours — was written 

 down with such a sketch of its various applications and 

 developments as occurred to me at the moment, — then 

 copied on thin letter-paper and sent off to Darwin — all with- 

 in one week. I was then (as often since) the " young man 

 in a hurry " : he, the painstaking and patient student, seek- 

 ing ever the full demonstration of the truth that he had 

 discovered, rather than to achieve immediate personal 

 fame. 



' Such being the actual facts of the case, I should have 

 had no cause for complaint if the respective shares of 

 Darwin and myself in regard to the elucidation of nature's 

 method of organic development had been thenceforth 

 estimated as being, roughly, proportional to the time we had 

 each bestowed upon it when it was thus first given to 

 the world — that is to say, as 20 years is to one week. 

 For, he had already made it his own. If the persuasion of 

 his friends had prevailed with him, and he had published 



