24 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



the human race, so strikingly presented by Malthus, brought the 

 whole question with such vividness before him that the idea of 

 'Natural Selection' flashed upon Darwin's mind." 



CHARLES DARWIN (1809-82) 



Charles Darwin is without question the foremost figure in the 

 development of the evolution idea and probably in the development 

 of science in general. The publication of his book, The Origin of 

 Species, in 1859, was the most important event in biological history. 

 As has been already shown, Darwin's chief ideas had been anticipated 

 not by one but by several of his predecessors. Nevertheless, he 

 was the first to furnish a really adequate proof of the fact of evolution 

 and his causo-mechanical theory to explain the method of evolution 

 was supported by a mass of systematically arranged data such as has 

 been paralleled neither before nor since. Darwin was the first evolu- 

 tionist effectively to employ the inductive method, that of everywhere 

 seeking facts first and then devising theories to fit the facts. He 

 never allowed speculation to outstrip observation, as nearly all of his 

 predecessors had done, but made theory await the amassing of facts 

 in its support, until the accumulation of the latter seemed almost to 

 speak out the theory of themselves. Our greatest debt to Darwin is 

 due to his establishment of the factual basis of evolution; his selection 

 theory was relatively of minor significance in so far as its value in the 

 development of the evolution idea was concerned. Yet this latter 

 theory gained the widest acceptance among the scientifically inclined 

 during the entire post-Darwinian period. It has been viciously 

 assailed on all sides and has tottered repeatedly under the attacks 

 of well-trained adversaries. Some of the weaker elements of the 

 theory have given way under stress, and the whole selection factor 

 as a primary causal factor in evolution has been seriously called into 

 question ; but since Darwin's time the fact of evolution has been almost 

 universally accepted. 



The story of Darwin's life is almost a romance. "Born in 1809," 

 says Lull, 1 " this emancipator of human minds from the shackles of 

 slavery to tradition saw the light of day upon the very day that 

 ushered in the life of Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator of human 

 bodies from a no more real physical bondage. Darwin studied first 

 at Edinburgh, but finding medicine unsuited to his tastes, entered 

 Christ's College, Cambridge, as a candidate for the church. His love 



1 Richard Swann Lull, Organic Evolution (The Macmillan Company, 1917). 



