of natural selection would have come from one of his walks. And if there were any
delays in Darwin forwarding the ‘Letter from Ternate’ to Sir Charles Lyell it may have
been because he spent many hours pacing around his ‘thinking path’. Here he would
sometimes stop to gaze at a plant or flower for minutes at a time while contemplating
the questions that were on his mind.
The question on his mind now was, did he want to have the honour that came with
the publication of his big, bad, dangerous idea? This was impossible so long as it
remained locked in his desk drawer. He desired the recognition that would accompany
the precedence of publication but his comfortable life would never be the same again.
Would the expected controversy plunge him deeper into his chronic ill-health? He
could remain silent and let the relatively unknown Wallace publish the theory. Wallace
was not part of the Establishment, and possibly cared little for it, so why not let him
commit what Darwin himself had described as ‘a murder’ – the murder of the God of
Creation! Then when things settled down Darwin could publish his full treatise on the
subject. Whatever Darwin would decide, he had an obligation to forward Wallace’s
paper to Lyell and his cover letter reads:
Some years ago, you recommended me to read a paper by Wallace in the ‘Annals’, which
had interested you and as I was writing to him, I knew this would please him much, so I told
him. He has today sent me the enclosed and asked me to forward it to you. It seems to me
well worth reading. Your words have come true with a vengeance that I should be forestalled
... I never saw a more striking coincidence, if Wallace had my manuscript Sketch written
out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as
Heads of my Chapters.
Please return me his manuscript which he does not say he wishes me to publish; but I
shall of course at once write and offer to send to any Journal. So all my originality, whatever
it may amount to, will be smashed. Though my Book, if it will ever have any value, will not
be deteriorated; as all the labour consists in the application of the theory.
I hope you will approve of Wallace’s sketch, so that I may tell him what you say.Letters then passed between Lyell, Hooker and Darwin, although the demoralized
Darwin, now grieving over the death of his baby son, is said to have distanced himself
from any decision. A year earlier, in 1857, Darwin had written a letter to an American
colleague Asa Gray, the leading American botanist of the day, asking him to maintain
secrecy while summarizing his current thoughts on the origin of species which reads:
The varying offspring of each species will try (only a few will succeed) to seize on as
many and as diverse places in the economy of nature as possible. Each new variety or
species when formed will generally take the places of and so exterminate its less well-fitted(^174) Where Australia Collides with Asia
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