Did Wallace really, as some claim, “scoop” Darwin on the theory of natural selection?
No. While Wallace had been thinking in evolutionary terms for many years–in fact, one might reasonably argue (because of his very early interest in social evolution), for as long as Darwin had–the natural selection concept in particular did not occur to him until 1858, by which time Darwin had been studying the idea for some twenty years. Wallace’s 1855 paper ‘On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species’ (S20), which hinted strongly at an evolutionary position, nevertheless contains not even a trace of natural selection-like thinking. Moreover . . . True, Darwin had published nothing concerning natural selection by the time he received Wallace’s essay ‘On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type’ (S43) in mid-1858–and true, Darwin’s contribution to the 1 July 1858 introduction of natural selection to the Linnean Society consisted only of two unpublished writings–but it must be remembered that Wallace’s essay itself was also an “unpu
