EFFECT OF THE ' ABSTEACT ' 499 
fairly complete sections of his MS. to his chief critic, his words, 
* Believe me I value to the full every word of criticism from 
you, and the advantage which I have derived from you cannot 
be told,' are a measure of the delight and rehef at that critic's 
appreciation of the finished argument. The process bears 
out the phrase of June 2, 1857 : 
Although we are very apt, I have observed, at the first 
approach of a subject, to take different views, we generally 
come to a near approach after a talk. 
Indeed, in writing on the subject, Darwin confesses, * I try to 
give the strongest cases opposed to me. I have been working 
your books as richest (and vilest) against mine ' (July 12, 1856). 
But in the end, when the first paper expounding his views had 
been read at the Linnean, he concludes : 
You cannot imagine how pleased I am that the notion 
of Natural Selection has acted as a purgative on your bowels 
of immutability. Whenever NaturaUsts can look on species 
changing as certain, what a magnificent field will be open, — 
on all the lines of variation — on the genealogy of all living 
beings — on their hnes of migration, &c., &c. 
At the end as at the beginning he was keenly aware of all 
the help Hooker had lent, help which, as has been said, Hooker 
himself rated at nothing. Darwin, however, exclaims : 
You speak of my having * so few aids ' ; why should you ? 
[you] yourself for years and years have aided me in innumer- 
able ways, lending me books, giving me endless facts, giving 
me your- valuable opinion and advice on all sorts of subjects, 
and more than all, your kindest sympathy. 
Again, when the Abstract had been set going after Wallace's 
paper had come like a bolt from the blue,^ he cries, ' in how 
^ It will be remembered how Wallace, on realising the vast work already 
done by Darwin to establish the theory on an incomparably broader basis than 
the observations which had suggested the same theory to himseK, generously 
waived all claim to priority. When in May 1864, in his paper on the Evolution 
of Man, in the Anthropological Review, he repeated his disclaimer, Hooker 
writes to Darwin (May 14) : 'I am struck with his negation of all credit or 
share in the Natural Selection theory — which makes one think him a very 
high-minded man.' 
