In 1858 Alfred Wallace, a young English naturalist, was bedridden with malaria on the island Ternate in the Malay Archipelago. While fighting the effects of the disease he had plenty of time to ponder the question of how exactly different species came into existence. It was something other inquisitive minds, including Charles Darwin, had been considering for years.
Alfred Wallace, Naturalist
Alfred Wallace was known among the English scientific community as a field researcher, a collector of beetles, but he didn’t have nearly the education, social standing, or overall scientific reputation of Darwin.
Wallace had traveled widely around the world and seen many different species adapted specifically to their environment. He wondered what caused one species to transform into a new species with new physical traits. Wallace surmised that the most fit of a species survived and that the traits which enabled them to survive were then passed down to future generations eventually creating a new species.
When Wallace recovered from his bout of malaria in February, 1858, he wrote down his ideas of species transmutation in a manuscript and sent it by steamer back to England addressed to the one scientist he’d met who he thought might be interested. So it was that the manuscript, titled “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type”, arrived in June at the home of Charles Darwin.
Darwin Receives Wallace’s Paper
Darwin was already a well-known scientist by virtue of his travels to the Galapagos Islands and the subsequent publication of his book detailing his travels on board the Beagle. When he read Wallace’s manuscript Darwin was devastated. Darwin had been working on a scientific paper for years, a long, unwieldy tome, that laid out his own theory of evolution. Now in his hands was a work from a young upstart in a concise, readable form, that mirrored his own thoughts and ideas on the subject.
Darwin, being an honorable man, told his friend, famed British geologist Charles Lyell, that there was no way he could publish his own paper on evolution now that Wallace had beaten him to the punch.
Darwin and Wallace: Scientific Partners
Lyell understood his friend’s dilemma. How could Darwin claim intellectual rights to the idea of transmutation of species with Wallace’s manuscript in his possession? Lyell came up with an idea. He convinced Darwin to present his paper along with Wallace’s to the British scientific community at the same time. Since Wallace was half way around the world and could neither consent or object, the deal was done.
So on July 1, 1858, the theory of how species originated, by Darwin and Wallace, was presented to the Linnean Society in London. Darwin, grieving over the death of a daughter, missed the event while Alfred Wallace was completely unaware of the proceedings being in New Guinea at the time collecting specimens of exotic animals.
Darwin Begins Writing
Darwin quickly began writing a condensed version of the long manuscript he had been working on about his theory of evolution. After ten months of continuous work he finished his paper in May, 1859. He spent the next five months making revisions and edits.
As for Alfred Wallace, he didn’t hear about the co-presentation of his and Darwin’s ideas until he returned to Ternate. There a letter from Darwin explaining what had happened was waiting for him. In the letter Darwin made it sound like his friend Lyell had taken the initiative to publish their ideas together and that he, Darwin, had simply been carried along on a tide of enthusiasm.
Wallace Reacts
Publicly Wallace presented a gracious face to the news. He thanked Darwin and Lyell for publishing his ideas and for giving him co-credit. He noted how happy he was that Darwin had been thinking about the same scientific ideas.
In personal letters to his mother Wallace expressed genuine excitement at having proposed an idea that gained him the recognition of the Linnean Society and one of Britian’s most eminent scientists. He was proud to tell his mother that he had made it.
On November 22, 1859, Charles Darwin published “On Origin Of Species”. It would become one of the most influential books ever written. It may never have been written had it not been for a manuscript sent to Darwin from an obscure naturalist, Alfred Wallace, who shocked him out of complacency and motivated him to present his revolutionary ideas to the world.
Sources
Quammen, David, “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin”, Atlas Books, 2006
Lawrence Koppy - Lawrence Koppy is an Oregon native living in the high desert of Central Oregon. He has been a small business owner for many years ...
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