RISE OF EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT 421 
though Mr. Darwin has for many years past been repeatedly 
urged by us to do so, and both authors having now unreserv- 
edly placed their papers in our hands, we think it would 
best promote the interests of science that a selection from 
them should be laid before the Linnean Society. 
“Taken in the order of their dates, they consist of: 
“yz, Extracts from a MS. work on species, by Mr. Dar- 
win, which was sketched in 1839 and copied in 1844, when 
the copy was read by Dr. Hooker, and its contents afterward 
communicated to Sir Charles Lyell. The first part is devoted 
to The Variation of Organic Beings under Domestication and 
in their Natural State; and the second chapter of that part, 
from which we propose to read to the Society the extracts 
referred to, is headed On the Variation of Organic Beings in 
a State of Nature; on the Natural \feans of Selection; on the 
Comparison of Domestic Races and True Species. 
‘2, An abstract of a private letter addressed to Professor 
Asa Gray, of Boston, U. S., in October, 1857, by Mr. Darwin, 
in which he repeats his views, and which shows that these 
remained unaltered from 1839 to 1857. 
“3, An essay by Mr. Wallace, entitled On the Tendency 
of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Tvpe. 
This was written at Ternate in February, 1858, for the 
perusal of his friend and correspondent, Mr. Darwin, and 
sent to him with the expressed wish that it should be for- 
warded to Sir Charles Lyell, if Mr. Darwin thought it suffi- 
ciently novel and interesting. So highly did Mr. Darwin 
appreciate the value of the views therein set forth that he 
proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. 
Wallace’s consent to allow the essay to be published as soon 
as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided Mr. 
Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was strongly 
inclined to do (in favor of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which 
he had himself written on the same subject, and which, as 
