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 bestowed upon it when it was
thus first given to the world--that is to say, as twenty years is
to one week. For, he had already made it his own. If the
persuasion of his friends had prevailed with him, and he had
published his theory after ten years'--fifteen years'--or even
eighteen years' elaboration of it--_I_ should have had no part in
it whatever, and _he_ would have been at once recognised as the
sole and undisputed discoverer and patient investigator of this
great law of "Natural Selection" in all its far-reaching
consequ