434 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
ciples” would have been reconsidered before the work had 
passed to the ninth edition in 1853. He was convinced that 
species went out of existence one by one, through natural 
causes, and that they came in one by one, bearing the impress 
of their immediate predecessorss but he saw no way to con- 
nect the two through natural operations. Nor, in fact, had 
any of the evolutionists been able to assign real causes capable 
of leading on such variations as are of well-known occurrence 
to wider and specific or generic differences. Just here came 
Darwin. When upon the spot he had perceived that the 
animals of the Galapagos must be modified forms derived 
from the adjacent continent, and he soon after worked out 
the doctrine of natural selection. This supplied what was 
wanting for the condensation of opinions and beliefs, and the 
collocation of rapidly accumulating facts, into a consistent 
and workable scientific theory, under a principle which un- 
questionably could directly explain much, and might indirectly 
explain more. 
It is not merely that Darwin originated and applied a new 
principle. Not to speak of Wallace, his contemporary, who 
came to it later, his countryman, Dr. Wells, as Mr. Darwin 
points out, “distinctly recognizes the principle of natural 
selection, and this is the first recognition which has been 
indicated ; but he applied it only to the races of men, and to 
certain characters alone.” Darwin, like the rest of the world, 
was unaware of this anticipation until he was preparing the 
fourth edition of his “ Origin of Species,” in 1866, when he 
promptly called attention to it, perhaps magnifying its impor- 
tance. However this be, Darwin appears to have been first 
and alone in apprehending and working out the results which 
necessarily come from the interaction of the surrounding 
agencies and conditions under which plants and animals exist, 
including, of course, their action upon each other. Personify- 
ing the ensemble of these and the consequences, — namely, 
the survival only of the fittest in the struggle for life, —under 
the term of Natural Selection, Mr. Darwin, with the instinct 
of genius divined, and with the ability of a master worked 
out its pregnant and far-reaching applications. He not only 
