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Introduction
Whatever may be said of the credit due to other scientists for investigation or discovery in natural selection, the preeminence of Darwin in this field is undisputed. If of any scientific book it can be said that its appearance was “epoch-making” it is true of Darwin’s work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Not only did it command the earnest attention of the scientific and literary world but it awakened the interest of thoughtful persons everywhere. Later research and criticism have modified the effect of his conclusions and led to new results but the “Darwinian theory” or “Darwinism” still holds and seems likely long to maintain a central place in the history of modern scientific development.
Charles Robert Darwin was born at Shrewsbury, England, February 12, 1809. He was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, an eminent physician, naturalist and poet, who in 1794-1796 published an important work entitled Zoönomia or the Laws of Organic Life. Charles Darwin was heir to a fortune and in youth the possession of ample means prevented him from taking any deep interest in studying for a profession, although he did study medicine and, later, for the church. But before reaching his majority he turned to natural history. At Cambridge he enjoyed an intimacy with the distinguished botanist Professor John S. Henslow, who quickened the young man’s enthusiasm for scientific investigation.
In his twenty-third year Darwin went as naturalist with a government expedition to Patagonia. The voyage, in the Beagle (1831-1836), was continued round the world. Darwin’s journals of the expedition served him in his later work and also furnished much material for popular information. From 1842, when he went to reside at Down, in Kent, he devoted himself wholly to a life of scientific research and writing.
Since it is not an uncommon error to confound natural selection with evolution, it may be well to point out that, while based on evolution, Darwinism is distinct from it. Evolution is the development of new organisms through heredity, variation and adaptation. Darwinism or the doctrine of natural selection, as best defined in these pages by Darwin himself, is seen to involve quite different factors from those of evolution as thus restricted. For candor and childlike simplicity, the writings of Darwin are especially noteworthy among the modest utterances of great men and nowhere are these qualities more strikingly revealed than in the following account of the production of his principal work.
This selection is by Charles Robert Darwin.
Time: 1859
Place: England
From September, 1854, I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile of notes, to observing and to experimenting in relation to the transmutation of species. During the voyage of the Beagle I had been deeply impressed by discovering in the pampean formation great fossil animals covered with armor like that on the existing armadillos; secondly, by the manner in which closely allied animals replace one another in proceeding southward over the continent; and thirdly, by the South American character of most of the productions of the Galapagos Archipelago and more especially by the manner in which they differ slightly on each island of the group, none of the islands appearing to be very ancient, in a geological sense.
It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could be explained only on the supposition that species gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that neither the action of the surrounding conditions nor the will of the organisms (especially in the case of plants) could account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully adapted to their habits of life — for instance, a woodpecker or a tree-frog to climb trees or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes. I had always been much struck by such adaptations and until these could be explained it seemed to me almost useless to endeavor to prove by indirect evidence that species have been modified.
After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example of Lyell in geology and by collecting all facts which bore in any way on the variation of animals and plants under domestication and nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. My first note-book was opened in July, 1837. I worked on true Baconian principles and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed inquiries, by conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners and by extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of journals and transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man’s success in making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me.
In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In June, 1842, I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in thirty-five pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of two hundred thirty pages, which I had fairly copied out and still possess.
But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it is astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his egg, how I could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed under genera, genera under families, families under sub-orders and so on; and I can remember the very spot in the road, while riding in my carriage, that, to my joy, the solution occurred to me; and this was long after I had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature.
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