investigations of two indefatigable naturalists, Mr Charles Darwin and Mr Alfred Wallace.
These gentlemen having, independently and unknown to one another, conceived the same
very ingenious theory to account for the appearance and perpetuation of varieties and of
specific forms on our planet, may both fairly claim the merit of being original thinkers in
this important line of enquiry; but neither of them having published his views, though Mr
Darwin has for many years past been repeatedly urged to do so, and both authors having
now unreservedly placed their papers in our hands, we think it would best promote the
interests of science that a selection from them should be laid before the Linnean Society.Joseph Hooker describes the meeting and the response after the presentation of the
papers:
The interest excited was intense, but the subject too novel and too ominous for the old
school to enter the lists, before armouring. After the meeting it was talked over with bated
breath: Lyell’s approval, and perhaps in a small way mine, as his lieutenant in the affair,
rather overawed the Fellows, who would otherwise have flown out against the doctrine.At the end of that year Thomas Bell, the president of the Linnean Society and
himself obviously opposed to Darwin’s theory, declared in his annual presidential
address that ‘The past year has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking
discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the department of science in
which they occur’.
After his return from his voyages to Papua and when the mail eventually reached
Ternate, Wallace found letters from both Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker explaining
the procedure of the joint presentation to the Linnean Society and hoping he would
approve. From his relatively solitary existence in a remote and obscure location, and
having just had a number of near-death experiences while on his voyage to Waigeo
and return to Ternate, this seemed like a miracle. Not knowing all the details of what
had happened, Wallace wrote excitedly to his mother:
I sent Mr Darwin an essay on a subject upon which he is now writing a great work. He
showed it to Dr Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell, who thought so highly of it that they had it
read before the Linnean Society. This insures me the acquaintance of these eminent men on
my return home.Wallace then wrote a response to Darwin’s letter and he received this reply in(^176) Where Australia Collides with Asia
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