C. Darwin
& A.R. Wallace, 'On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties;
and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means
of Selection', Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean
Society, Zoology, 20 Aug. 1858, 3, pp.
45-62.
An Essay by Mr. Wallace,
entitled "On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from
the Original Type." 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
forwarded to Sir Charles Lyell, if Mr. Darwin thought it
sufficiently 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 favour of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which he had
himself written on the same subject, and which, as before stated,
one of us had perused in 1844, and the contents of which we had
both of us been privy to for many years. On representing
this to Mr. Darwin, he gave us permission to make what use we
thought proper of his memoir, &c.; and in adopting our present
course, of presenting it to the Linnean Society, we have explained
to him that we are not solely considering the relative claims to
priority of himself and his friend, but the interests of science
generally; for we feel it to be desirable that views founded on a
wide deduction from facts and matured by years of reflection,
should constitute at once a goal from which others may start, and
that, while the scientific world is waiting for the appearance of
Mr. Darwin's complete work, some of the leading results of his
labours, as well as those of his able correspondent, should
together be laid before the public. We have the honour to be yours very
obediently, CHARLES LYELL.JOS. D.
HOOKER.
Darwin received a letter from Wallace in April,
1858, outlining all the main points of his own theory: "I never saw a more striking
coincidence... If Wallace had my MS sketch written out in 1842 he
could not have made a better short abstract!". Though
clearly distressed by the loss of priority ["Your words have come true with a
vengeance that I shd. be forestalled."], Darwin immediately
notified his friends Lyell and Hooker, asking that the essay be
published. Lyell and Hooker agreed to do so, provided that
Darwin also publish an abstract of his own work, which was much more
extensively supported by facts then was Wallace's more speculative
essay. The
papers by Darwin and Wallace, including the original essays of
each, were read to the Linnean Society on 01 July 1858.
The minutes of the meeting record no reaction. Darwin's book "On
the Origin of Species by Natural Selection", which he referred
to as an "Abstract", was published on 01 October 1859. It
sold out on the first day, and went through six editions.
Darwin and Wallace remained close friends until Darwin's death in
1882. Wallace was one of the pallbearers at Darwin's internment in
Westminster Abbey.
HOMEWORK: The penultimate
sentence of the cover letter from Lyell & Hooker is fairly
typical Victorian prose, and includes 133 words, 11 commas, and 2
semi-colons. It would be considered a run-on sentence by
21st century standards. Edit, so as to shorten sentence length.
HOMEWORK: Compare and contrast
the views of Wallace with respect to Darwin on natural selection and
the origin of species, as of early 1858. To what extent is
Wallace' MS a 'short abstract' of Darwin's presentation?