nearly as complete as my present materials allow.' And these materials he speaks of as so large 'that it would take me at least a year to go over and classify them.' This plan was steadily adhered to, and by June 1858 he had completed some nine or ten chapters of the book. At this point the work was interrupted, never to be resumed on the same plan.
On 18 June 1858 he received a manuscript from Mr. A. R. Wallace, then in the Malay Archipelago, in which a theory of the origin of species identical with his own was put forward. On the day that he received the paper he wrote to Lyell: 'I never saw a more striking coincidence; if Wallace had my manuscript sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract!' Mr. Wallace made no mention of any intention of publishing the essay, merely requesting that it might be forwarded to Lyell; but Darwin determined at once 'to offer to send it to any journal.' Then came a period of doubt on Darwin's part as to what he should do. Being urged by his friends to publish an abstract of his own views, he wrote to Lyell: 'Wallace might say, " You did not intend publishing an abstract of your views till you received my communication. Is it fair to take advantage of my having freely, though unasked, communicated to you my ideas, and thus prevent me forestalling you?" The advantage which I should take being that I am induced to publish from privately knowing that Wallace is in the field. It seems hard on me that I should be thus compelled to lose my priority of many years' standing, but I cannot feel at all sure that this alters the justice of the case. First impressions are generally right, and I at first thought it would be dishonourable in me now to publish.'
Ultimately the matter was left in the hands of his friends Lyell and Hooker, who decided that the fair course would be to publish, simultaneously with Mr. Wallace's essay, a letter of 5 Sept. 1857, addressed to Dr. Asa Gray, in which Darwin had given an account of his theory, together with some passages from his sketch of 1844. The two papers were read on the evening of 1 July 1858, and were published together in the 'Linnean Society's Journal,' vol. iii. No. 9, 1858.
This incident was a fortunate one for the progress of evolution, since it induced Darwin to write the 'Origin of Species,' a presentation of his views far more readable and more powerful for conversion than his projected fuller work could possibly have been. After the publication of the paper by the Linnean Society he at once set to work to write his 'Abstract,' the name under which he constantly refers at this time to the 'Origin of Species.' The first idea was that it should be published in a series of numbers of the 'Linnean Journal,' and it was not till about the end of 1858 that it became evident that it must be published as a separate work. In March 1809 he wrote: 'I can see daylight through my work ... and I hope in a month or six weeks to have proof-sheets. I am weary of my work. It is a very odd thing that I have no sensation that I overwork my brain; but facts compel me to conclude that my brain was never formed for much thinking.' The weariness increased with the correction, so that to finish the book at all was almost a greater strain than he could bear. He speaks of the style being 'incredibly bad, and most difficult to make clear and smooth;' again, of the proof-sheets as being corrected so heavily as almost to be rewritten. At last, on 11 Sept., he wrote that he had finished the last proof-sheet, adding, 'Oh, good heavens! the relief to my head and body to banish the whole subject from my mind I' The book was published on 24 Nov. 1859, and the whole edition of 1,250 copies sold on the day of publication. Lyell had read an early copy of it, and wrote on 3 Oct. a letter full of enthusiastic admiration of the book, but somewhat cautiously expressed as to acceptance of the principle. Sir J. D. Hooker wrote also in terms of warm admiration, and was considered by Darwin as his first convert; and other letters in the same spirit soon followed from Mr. Huxley, Dr. Asa Gray, Sir John (then Mr.) Lubbock, and Dr. Carpenter. The letters accompanying presentation copies show how moderate were the expectations of the author in the matter of conversion. He wrote to Dr. Hugh Falconer: 'If you read it, you must read it straight through, otherwise from its extremely condensed state it will be unintelligible.' And to his old master Henslow: 'If you are in ever so slight a decree staggered (which I hardly expect) on the immutability of species, then I am convinced with further reflection you will become more and more staggered, for this has been the process through which my mind has gone.' Doubts of another kind are expressed in a letter to Dr. Carpenter (19 Nov.): 'When I think of the many cases of men who have studied one subject for years, and have persuaded themselves of the truth of the foolishest doctrines, I feel sometimes a little frightened, whether I may not be one of these monomaniacs.' In the spring of the following year he began to feel sure that the subject was making converts in the class which he especially wished to gain over. On 3 March 1860 he wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker:
