The one fact that connects me with Darwin, and which, I am happy to say, has never been doubted, is that the idea of what is now termed “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest,” together with its far-reaching consequences, occurred to us independently, and was first jointly announced before this Society fifty years ago.

But, what is often forgotten by the Press and the public is, that the idea occurred to Darwin in 1838, nearly twenty years earlier than to myself (in February, 1858); and that during the whole of that twenty years he had been laboriously collecting evidence from the vast mass of literature of biology, of horticulture, and of agriculture; as well as himself carrying out ingenious experiments and original observations, the extent of which is indicated by the range of subjects discussed in his “Origin of Species,” and especially in that wonderful storehouse of knowledge, his “Animals and Plants under Domestication,” almost the whole materials for which work had been collected, and to a large extent systematised, during that twenty years.

So far back as 1844, at a time when I had hardly thought of any serious study of nature, Darwin had written an outline of his views, which he communicated to his friends Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. (now Sir Joseph) Hooker.  The former strongly urged him to publish an abstract of his theory as soon as possible, lest some other person might precede him; but he always refused till he had got together the whole of the materials for his intended great work.  Then, at last, Lyell’s prediction was fulfilled, and, without any apparent warning, my letter, with the enclosed essay, came upon him, like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky!  This forced him to what he considered a premature publicity, and his two friends undertook to have our two papers read before this Society.

How different from this long study and preparation—­this philosophical caution—­this determination not to make known his fruitful conception till he could back it up by overwhelming proofs—­was my own conduct.

The idea came to me as it had come to Darwin, in a sudden flash of insight; it was thought out in a few hours—­was written down with such a sketch of its various applications and developments as occurred to me at the moment—­then copied on thin letter paper and sent off to Darwin—­all within one week. I was then (as often since) the “young man in a hurry”:  he, the painstaking and patient student seeking ever the full demonstration of the truth that he had discovered, rather than to achieve immediate personal fame.

Such being the actual facts of the case, I should have had no cause for complaint if the respective shares of Darwin and myself in regard to the elucidation of Nature’s method of organic development had been henceforth estimated as being, roughly, proportional to the time we had each