WCP1454

Letter (WCP1454.4022)

[1]

Ternate, Moluccas,

Oct. 6. 1858.

My dear Sir

I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of July last,1 sent me by Mr. Darwin2, & informing me of the steps you had taken with reference to a paper3 I had communicated to that gentleman. Allow me in the first place sincerely to thank yourself & Sir Charles Lyell4 for your kind offices on this occasion, & to assure you of the gratification afforded me both by the course you have pursued & the favourable opinions of my essay which you have so kindly expressed. I cannot but consider myself a favoured party in this Matter, because it has hitherto been too much the practice in cases of this sort to impute all the merit to the [2] first discoverer of a new fact or a new theory, & little or none to any other party who may, quite independently, have arrived at the same result a few years or a few hours later.

I also look upon it as a most fortunate circumstance that I had a short time ago commenced a correspondence with Mr. Darwin on the subject of "Varieties",5since it has led to the earlier publication of a portion of his researches6 & has secured to him a claim to priority which an independent publication either by myself or some other party might have injuriously affected; — for it is evident that the time has now arrived when these & similar views must[?] will be promulgated & must be fairly discussed.

It would have caused me much [3] pain & regret had Mr. Darwin's excess of generosity led him to make public my paper unaccompanied by his own much earlier & I doubt not much more complete views on the same subject, & I must again thank you for the course you have adopted, which while strictly just to both parties, is so favourable to myself.

Being on the eve of a fresh journey I can now add no more than to thank you for your kind advice as to a speedy return to England; — but I dare say you well know & feel, that to induce a Naturalist to quit his researches at their most interesting point requires some more cogent argument than the prospective loss of health.

I remain | My dear Sir | Yours very sincerely | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

J. D. Hooker, M.D.

[4]7 Jos. D. Hooker, M.D. F.R.S.

1
Hooker's letter to ARW forwarded by Darwin is presumed lost (see WCP4825.5222).
2
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). British naturalist, geologist and author, notably of On the Origin of Species (1859).
3
Wallace, A. R. 1858. On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Zoology, 3(9): 53-62.
4
Lyell, Charles (1797-1875). British lawyer and geologist.
5
See WCP1839.1729, Darwin to ARW, 1 May 1857; WCP4080.4027, ARW to Darwin, [27 September 1857] and WCP1840.1730, Darwin to ARW, 22 December 1857.
6
Darwin, C. R. & Wallace, A. R. 1858. On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Zoology, 3(9): 45-62.
7
The text on this page is written in the centre of the page, which is otherwise blank. Hooker's name appears here without an address; the letter was forwarded to him by Darwin (see University of Cambridge. 2019. Letter no. 2337. Darwin Correspondence Project. <http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/DCP-LETT-2337> [accessed 10 January 2019]).

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP1454.4022)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Beccaloni, George [2012-10-11] Transcription checked by Beccaloni, George [2012-10-17] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Watt, Helen [2019-01-29]

Please cite as “WCP1454,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 16 February 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP1454