Discussion:Comprendre l'Evolution 2012 Ch1
Q. Was Wallace really more Darwinian than Darwin himself?
A. Yes, if by "Darwinian" we mean an acceptance that most evolutionary change is driven by the process of natural selection. Wallace vigorously rejected Lamarckism (the inheritance of acquired characteristics), beginning with his seminal essay of 1858. He correctly insisted throughout his long life that natural selection is the primary mechanism of evolutionary change. Darwin, however, introduced Lamarckian ideas into the fifth and sixth editions Origin of Species, downplaying the role of natural selection (for more information see this paper). Thus, ironically, Wallace could be classed, in modern terminology, as being the first neo-Darwinian (i.e. Darwinism without Lamarckism)! Perhaps it would therefore be fitting if this term was replaced by "Wallacian".
Q. Were Darwin and Wallace the first to discover natural selection?
A. Perhaps not, although their 1858 papers were the first explicit well argued pronouncement of the idea. The theory of natural selection was first proposed by Patrick Matthew in 1831 in an appendix to his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, but the idea was not very well explained and none of his contemporaries picked up on it. He himself did not make any further mention of it in his writing, until 1860, when he wrote to the Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette to point out his priority of the idea (a fact which Darwin fully accepted). Thus the modern concept (= meme) of natural selection traces its origin to the 1858 papers by Darwin and Wallace, and not to Matthew's 1831 book.
For a long and emotive discussion of this subject see: https://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=52968