My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

192 MY LIFEThe effect of my paper upon Darwin was at firstalmost paralyzing. He had, as I afterwards learnt,hit upon the same idea as my own twenty yearsearlier, and had occupied himself during the whole ofthat long period in study and experiment, and insketching out and partly writing a great work, toshow how the new principle would serve to explainalmost all the chief phenomenon and characters ofliving things in their relation to each other.So early as 1844 he had shown portions of thiswork to Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. Joseph Hooker,who had been greatly struck by it, and who werethenceforth his only confidants in the secret of hisnew idea, which from the analogy of the breeder'sselection of the most suitable animals or plants inorder to produce new varieties, he termed "naturalselection." Sir Charles Lyell had frequently urgedhim to publish an outline of his views, saying— " Ifyou don't, some one else will hit upon it, and you willbe forestalled."On receiving my paper he wrote toSir Charles— "Your words have come true with avengeance—that I should be forestalled. I never sawa more striking coincidence. ... So all my originality,whatever it may amount to, will be smashed,though my book, if it will ever have any value, willnot be deteriorated, as all the labour consists in theapplication of the theory " (" Life and Letters ofCharles Darwin," ii. p. 116).Darwin was naturally much troubled, and didnot know how to act, declaring in a later letter toSir Charles Lyell— " I would far rather burn mywhole book, than that he (Wallace) or any other manshould think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit."He therefore left the matter in the hands of histwo friends, and they determined (on their own