It has been stated (not
unfrequently) in the daily and weekly press, that Darwin and
myself discovered "Natural Selection" simultaneously, while a more
daring few have declared that I was _the first_ to discover it,
and I gave way to Darwin!
In order to avoid further errors of this kind (which this
Celebration may possibly encourage), I think it will be well to
give the actual facts as simply and clearly as possible.
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.
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