seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. Even Lyell and lowe to the

(109'10] Hooker, though they would listen with interest to me, never seemed to agree. I tried once or twice to explain to able mer. what I meant by Natural Sele<:tion, but signally failed . What I believe was strictly true is that innumerable well-observed facts were stored in the minds naturalists, ready to take their proper places as soon as any theory which appearance of Mr Wallace'sessay; had I published on the s£ale in which I began to write in 1856, the book would have been four or five times as large as the Origin, and very few would have had the patience to read it. I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when the theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it, for I cared