e "Origin" may, I think, be attributed in large part to
my having long before written two condensed sketches and to my having
abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an abstract. By
this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts and
conclusions. I had also, during many years followed a golden rule,
namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought
came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a
memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience
that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory
than favourable ones. Owing to this habit very few objections were
raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted
to answer.

It has sometimes been said that the success of the "Origin" proved "that
the subject was in the air," or "that men's minds were prepared for it."
I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded
not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one
who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. Even Lyell and
Hooker, though they listened with interest to me, never seemed to agree.
I tried once or twice to explain to able men what I meant by Natural
Selection, but signally failed. What I believe was strictly true is that
innumerable well-observed facts were stored in the minds of naturalists
ready to take their proper places as soon as any theory which would
receive them was sufficiently explained. Another element in the success
of the book was its moderate size; and this I owe to the appearance of
Mr. Wallace's essay; had I published on the scale on 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 an publishing from about, 1839, when the
theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it, for I
cared very little whether men attributed most originality to me or
Wallace; and his essay no doubt aided in the reception of the theory. I
was forestalled in only one important point, which my vanity has always
made me regret, namely, the explanation by means of the Glacial period
of the presence of the same species of plants and of some few animals on
distant mountain summits and in the arctic regions. This view pleased me
so much that I wrote it out _in extenso_, and I believe that it was read
by H