Abstract
In the Author’s Introduction to the first edition of Origin of Species, Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) mentioned he was dealing with his ideas on the origin of species since he returned from the voyage of the Beagle. Besides that, he intended to publish them in 2 years. Nevertheless, it did not happen. Several years later, when he was still dealing with his manuscript, in 1858, Darwin received a memoir from Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) with the same general conclusions as him. Due to this, he published The Origin of Species the following year. Before the Origin (1859), Darwin and Wallace published their ideas in the Linnean Society of London journal. This chapter discusses Wallace’s ideas trying to detect to what extent they were similar to Darwin’s in their papers published in 1858. The analysis concluded that despite the sequence differences, both authors’ contributions are coherent. Although some terms or expressions are different, their connotation is the same. Both referred to the “struggle for existence” in nature, although Darwin did not use this expression. Wallace, contrary to Darwin, did not use the words “natural selection” but referred to a principle whose connotation is the same. Wallace and Darwin agreed that species exist first as varieties. Both of them admitted the principle of divergence. In short, their main ideas were similar, as they realized in 1858.
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Notes
- 1.
Although Darwin started his autobiography in 1860, it appeared only in 1887, as part of Darwin’s Life and Letters and later as a separate volume in 1958, edited by his granddaughter Norma Barlow. Opinions pro and against it have appeared (Colp Jr, 1985, p. 362). In the present chapter, we use Norma Barlow’s edition (Barlow, 1958).
- 2.
It is worthwhile mentioning that Wallace also thought at the time that their theories were identical (Bulmer, 2005, p. 126). In an introductory note to a reprint of his Ternate paper (Wallace, 1891), Wallace wrote: “This [paper] sets for the main features of a theory identical with that discovered by Mr. Darwin many years before but not then published” (Wallace, 1891, p. 20, apud, Bulmer, 2005, p. 126).
- 3.
The communication of Darwin’s and Wallace’s works by Lyell and Hooker produced a low impact on the audience. According to Edward S. Rhayer, this happened because of the lack of understanding of its implications (Rayher, 1996, p. 160).
- 4.
Hooker read it in 1844 and communicated its contents afterward to Charles Lyell. These extracts are the ones published in the Journal of the Linnean Society of London (Darwin, 1858a).
- 5.
Darwin read Malthus’ Essay on natural populations in the 1826 edition, where these ideas appear more detailed than in the first edition (Regner, 2004, p. 48). Darwin wrote: “In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed” (Barlow, 1958, p. 120).
- 6.
Several historians of science agree that reading Thomas Malthus’ Essay on the principle of population, published anonymously in 1798, brought elements that contributed to Darwin’s formulation of the principle of natural selection (Bowler, 1989, p. 120). Some of them, such as Peter Vorzimer, Michael Ghiselin, and Ernst Mayr, attribute it to a catalyzing role in the development of Darwin’s theory (Regner, 2004, p. 50). However, others consider that Darwin would propose it even without a reading, such as Anna Carolina K. P. Regner (2004).
- 7.
For Darwin, these limiting factors were food scarcity, long periods of drought, cold, and rain.
- 8.
In a previous paper written in Sarawak, Borneo, published in 1855, departing from the observation of the geographical distribution of animals and plants, Wallace concluded that “Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closed allied species” (Wallace, Apud, Bulmer, 2005, p. 125). Nevertheless, this paper aroused little interest and received no constructive criticism as his author expected (Beddall, 1972, p. 153).
- 9.
Ectopistes migratorius. This species, widespread and populous in the nineteenth century, became extinct at the beginning of the twentieth century due to hunting and habitat destruction.
- 10.
Both of Wallace’s parents were English, and he regarded himself as English. Although he was born in south Wales and lived there until age 6, when the family relocated back to England, he never learned the Welsh language. See Charles Smith: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/FAQ.htm#Welsh
- 11.
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do Carmo, V.A., Martins, L.AC.P. (2023). Wallace, Darwin, and the Relationship Between Species and Varieties (1858). In: Elice Brzezinski Prestes, M. (eds) Understanding Evolution in Darwin's "Origin". History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 34. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40165-7_9
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