Life of Charles DarwinBettany, G. T. (George Thomas)
Science
Life of Charles Darwin
Bettany, G. T. (George Thomas)
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882
"3. 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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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