INTRODUCTION xvii 



designed corresponds to Part II (p. 22) of the 

 Foundations, which is (p. 7) defined by the author 

 as discussing " whether the characters and relations 

 of animated things are such as favour the idea of 

 wild species being races descended from a common 

 stock." Again at p. 23 the author asks "What 

 then is the evidence in favour of it (the theory of 

 descent) and what the evidence against it." The 

 generalised section of his Essay having been origin- 

 ally Chapter III 1 accounts for the curious error 

 which occurs in pp. 18 and 22 where the second 

 Part of the Foundations is called Part III. 



The division of the Essay into two parts is main- 

 tained in the enlarged Essay of 1844 in which he 

 writes : " The Second Part of this work is devoted 

 to the general consideration of how far the general 

 economy of nature justifies or opposes the belief 

 that related species and genera are descended from 

 common stocks." The Origin of Species however is 

 not so divided. 



We may now return to the question of the 

 date of the Foundations. I have found additional 

 evidence in favour of 1842 in a sentence written 

 on the back of the Table of Contents of the 

 1844 MS. not the copied version but the original in 

 my father's writing : " This was written and enlarged 

 from a sketch in 37 pages 2 in Pencil (the latter 

 written in summer of 1842 at Maer and Shrewsbury) 

 in beginning of 1844, and finished it (sic) in July; 

 and finally corrected the copy by Mr Fletcher in 

 the last week in September." On the whole it is 

 impossible to doubt that 1842 is the date of the 

 Foundations. 



1 It is evident that Parts and Chapters were to some extent inter- 

 changeable in the author's mind, for p. 1 (of the MS. we have been dis- 

 cussing) is headed in ink Chapter I, and afterwards altered in pencil to 

 Part 1. 



2 On p. 23 of the MS. of the Foundations is a reference to the "back of 

 p. 21 bis": this suggests that additional pages had been interpolated in 

 the MS. and that it may once have had 37 in place of 35 pp. 



