SKETCH OF 1842. II 



of Species to form Varieties,' * the essay of 1844 (extracts 

 from which form part of the paper) is said to have been 

 "'sketched in 1839, and copied in 1844." This statement is 

 obviously made on the authority of a note written in my 

 father's hand across the Table of Contents of the 1844 Essay. 

 It is to the following effect : "This was sketched in 1839, and 

 copied out in full, as here written and read by you in 1844." 

 I conclude that this note was added in 1858, when the MS. 

 was sent to Sir J. D. Hooker (see Letter of June 29, 1858, 

 Vol. II. p. 1 19). There is also some further evidence on this side 

 of the question. Writing to Mr. Wallace (Jan. 25, 1859) m 7 

 father says : " Every one whom I have seen has thought 

 your paper very well written and interesting. It puts my 

 extracts (written in 1839, now just twenty years ago !), which 

 I must say in apology were never for an instant intended for 

 publication, into the shade." The statement that the earliest 

 sketch was written in 1839 has been frequently made in 

 biographical notices of my father, no doubt on the authority 

 of the ' Linnean Journal,' but it must, I think, be considered 

 as erroneous. The error may possibly have arisen in this 

 way. In writing on the Table of Contents of the 1844 MS. 

 that it was sketched in 1839, I think my father may have 

 intended to imply that the framework of the theory was clearly 

 thought out by him at that date. In the Autobiography 

 (p. 88) he speaks of the time, "about 1839, when the theory 

 was clearly conceived," meaning, no doubt, the end of 1838 

 and beginning of 1839, when the reading of Malthus had 

 given him the key to the idea of natural selection. But this 

 explanation does not apply to the letter to Mr. Wallace ; and 

 with regard to the passage f in the 'Linnean Journal' it is 

 difficult to understand how it should have been allowed to 



* ' Linn. Soc. Journal,' 1858, footnote apologising for the style of 



p. 45- the extracts, on the ground that the 



t My father certainly saw the " work was never intended for pub- 

 proofs of the paper, for he added a lication." 



