This last, indeed, is perhaps the main purpose of the earlier
chapters of this book. I shall presently give a translation of a
lecture by Professor Ewald Hering of Prague, which appeared ten years
ago, and which contains so exactly the theory I subsequently
advocated myself, that I am half uneasy lest it should be supposed
that I knew of Professor Hering's work and made no reference to it.
A friend to whom I submitted my translation in MS., asking him how
closely he thought it resembled "Life and Habit," wrote back that it
gave my own ideas almost in my own words. As far as the ideas are
concerned this is certainly the case, and considering that Professor
Hering wrote between seven and eight years before I did, I think it
due to him, and to my readers as well as to myself, to explain the
steps which led me to my conclusions, and, while putting Professor
Hering's lecture before them, to show cause for thinking that I
arrived at an almost identical conclusion, as it would appear, by an
almost identical road, yet, nevertheless, quite independently, I must
ask the reader, therefore, to regard these earlier chapters as in
some measure a personal explanation, as well as a contribution to the
history of an important feature in the developments of the last
twenty years. I hope also, by showing the steps by which I was led
to my conclusions, to make the conclusions themselves more acceptable
and easy of comprehension.

Being on my way to New Zealand when the "Origin of Species" appeared,
I did not get it till 1860 or 1861. When I read it, I found "the
theory of natural selection" repeatedly spoken of as though it were a
synonym for "the theory of descent with modification"; this is
especially the case in the recapitulation chapter of the work. I
failed to see how important it was that these two theories--if indeed
"natural selection" can be called a theory--should not be confounded