Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

PREFAC-E V
most varied kind,s-that wide and accurate physiological knowledge,-that acnuteness.in devising and
skill in carrying out experiments,-and that admirable
style of composition, at once clear persuasive and
judicial,-qualities, which in their harmonious combination mark out Mr. Darwin as the man, perhaps of
all men now living, best fitted for the great work he
has undertaken and accomplished.
My own more limited powers have, it is true, enabled
me now and then to seize on some conspicuous group
of unappropriated facts, and to search out some generalization which might bring them under the reign
of known law; but they are not suited to that more
scientific and more laborious process of elaborate induction, which in Mr. Darwin's hands has led to such
brilliant results.
Another reason which has led me to publish this
volume at the present time is, that there are some important points on which I differ from Mr. Darwin, and
I wish to put my opinions on record in an easily
accessible form, before the publication of his new
work, (already announced,) in which I believe most
of these disputed questions will be fully discussed.
I will now give the date and mode of publication of
each of the essays in this volume, as well as the amount
of alteration they have undergone.
1.-ON THE LAW WHICH HAS REGULATED THE INTRODUCTION OF LNEW SPECIES.
First published in the " Annals and Magazine of