One of Sigmund Freud's early patients rushed out into an Austrian afternoon on her way to meet her best friend at a coffee house.
Over Cappuccino and Viennese pastries, she suddenly burst out crying.
Her friend begged her to share what was wrong.
"Oh, it's just terrible," she wailed. "Today the doctor told me I'm in love with my father, and. . .and. . .and you know, he's a married man!"
Evolution theoryIn 1858, the Wallace-Darwin theory of evolution was first published at the Linnaean Society in London*. The previous month Charles Darwin received a letter from Alfred Wallace, who was collecting specimens in the East Indies. Wallace had independently developed a theory of natural selection - which was almost identical to Darwin's. The letter asked Darwin to evaluate the theory, and if worthy of publication, to forward the manuscript to Charles Lyell. Darwin did so, almost giving up his clear priority for he had not yet published his masterwork The Origin of Species. Neither Darwin nor Wallace were present for the oral presentation at the Linnaean Society, where geologist Charles Lyell and botanist Joseph Hooker presented both Wallace's paper and excerpts from Darwin's unpublished 1844 essay. |
