10 TRANSACTIONS LIVEKPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



least, that, through the many years of strife and turmoil 

 which followed, these two English naturalists consistently 

 maintained towards each other such feelings of magnani- 

 mous recognition that it is hard to say whether we should 

 most admire the intellectual or the moral qualities which, 

 in relation to their common labours they have displayed." 



The chief point of divergence of views between Darwin 

 and Wallace is, the contention by Wallace that the higher 

 characteristics of man are due to the special endowment 

 of "a spiritual essence or nature capable of progressive 

 development under favourable conditions." Darwin, on 

 the other hand, maintaining that the higher qualities of 

 man were evolved by natural selection in precisely the 

 same manner as his bodily structure. 



Darwin had returned from his memorable five years' 

 voyage in the ' Beagle,' in 1836, soon after w T hich he 

 produced one of the most charming works on natural 

 history ever written — "A Naturalist's Voyage Bound the 

 World," followed by its sister volume on " Geological 

 Observations." 



His valuable work on " The Structure and Distribution 

 of Coral Reefs," appeared shortly prior to the " Geological 

 Observations," and gave to the world, for the first time, 

 a scientific solution of this beautiful phenomenon. Al- 

 though it has, in the opinion of many biologists, been 

 surpassed by the more recent theory of Dr. John Murray, 

 it is more than probable that both theories will hold good 

 as applied to different localities. 



Darwin's observations during his memorable voyage 

 also bore fruit in the production of his exhaustive treatise, 

 "Monograph of the Cirripedia," published by the Ray 

 Society in 1851 and 1854 — a book of 1,000 pages and 40 

 plates. Any one of these works would have been sufficient 

 to place Darwin in the front rank of naturalists, and, 



