Adventures Of A Young Naturalist

Huxley, a believer in evolution, attacked the book with some venom, unaware that the author was a friend.[42] DarwinБЂ™s manuscript might have remained locked away till his death but for an alarming blow that arrived from the Far East in the early summer of 1858 in the form of a packet containing a friendly letter from a young naturalist named Alfred Russel Wallace and the draft of a paper, On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type, outlining a theory of natural selection that was uncannily similar to DarwinБЂ™s secret jottings. Even some of the phrasing echoed DarwinБЂ™s own. БЂњI never saw a more striking coincidence,БЂ«Darwin reflected in dismay. БЂњIf Wallace had my manuscript sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract.БЂ«Wallace didnБЂ™t drop into DarwinБЂ™s life quite as unexpectedly as is sometimes suggested. The two were already corresponding, and Wallace had more than once generously sent Darwin specimens that he thought might be of interest ...»