Every Species Has Come Into Existence

Alfred Russel Wallace published this principle in his 1855 paper "On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species," written while ill with fever in Sarawak, Borneo. Published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, it became known as the "Sarawak Law" and was the first formal statement of what would become the theory of evolution by natural selection. Charles Darwin read it and noted its similarity to his own unpublished work.