The work had a great effect on W.D. Hamilton , who discovered it as an undergraduate at Cambridge and noted on the rear cover of the 1999 variorum edition : This is a book which , as a student , I weighed as of equal importance to the entire rest of my undergraduate Cambridge BA course and , through the time I spent on it , I think it notched down my degree .
Hamilton , a leading theoretician of the later 20th century , said : `` This is a book which , as a student , I weighed as of equal importance to the entire rest of my undergraduate Cambridge BA course ... through the time I spent on it , I think it notched down my degree .