the conception of the theory of
Natural Selection grew and eventually took definite form in Wallace's
mind, independently of the same development in the mind of Darwin, we
must go back to a much earlier period in his life, and as nearly as
possible link up, the scattered remarks which here and there act as
signposts pointing towards the supreme solution which has made his name
famous for all time.

In Part I., Section I., many passages occur which clearly reveal his
awakening to the study of nature. A chance remark overheard in
conversation in the quiet street of Hertford touched the hidden spring
of interest in a subject which was to become the one great purpose of
his life. Then his enthusiastic yielding to the simple and natural
attraction which flowers and trees have always exerted upon the
sympathetic observer led step by step to the study of groups and
families, until, on his second sojourn at Neath, and about a year before
his journey to South America with H.W. Bates, we find him deliberately
pondering over the problem which many years later he described by saying
that he "had in fact been bitten by the passion for species and their
description."

In a letter to Bates dated November 9th, 1847, he concludes by asking,
"Have you read 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,' or is it
out of your line?" and in the next (dated December 28th), in reply to
one from his friend, he continues, "I have a rather more favourable
opinion of the 'Vestiges' than you appear to have, I do not consider it
a hasty generalisation, but rather an ingenious hypothesis strongly
supported by some striking facts and analogies, but which remains to be
proved by more facts and the additional light which more research may
throw upon the problem.... It furnishes a subject for every observer of
nature to attend to; every fact," he observes, "will make either for or
against it, and it thus serves both as an incitement to the collection
of facts, and an object to which they can be applied when collected.
Many eminent writers support the theory of the progressive development
of animals and plants. There is a very philosophical work bearing
directly on the question--Lawrence's 'Lectures on Man'.... The great
object of these 'Lectures' is to illustrate the different races of
mankind, and the manner in which they probably originated, and he
arrives at the conclusion (as also does Prichard in his work on the
'Physical History of Man') that the