Wallace and Darwin

Summary. The scientific friendship between Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin has become one of the most famous relationships in the history of science. It could so easily have degenerated into an ugly priority dispute after Wallace's surprising letter to Darwin from Ternate in 1858, in which Wallace outlined his own theory of evolution by natural selection; yet, the relationship was characterized throughout by personal generosity and high scientific esteem. No two authors thrown together in such a fashion tried harder than Darwin and Wallace to treat each other fairly. Wallace greatly admired On the Origin of Species. In turn, Darwin regarded Wallace as the one man who truly understood the idea of evolution by natural selection.