58 Selection the Means. 



and his original contribution to the hypothesis of 



evolution. It was the spark which kindled into 



life the long-prepared materials for biological 



*x science. The thought of natural selection, of a 



i universal struggle for life and survival of the 



\ ~ fittest^was the soul with which Darwin informed 



the scientific body fashioned by his predecessors. 



Tn that thought, and that alone, consists, as 



Haeckel says, the essential service which Darwin 



rendered to modern science. 



But what in particular is the nature of this new 

 formative conception ? and how did it originate 

 in Darwin s mind ? The latter question Darwin 

 himself enables us to answer. After he had at 

 tained, through a study of domestic productions, 

 a just conception of the power of selection, it 

 dawned upon him, &quot; on reading Malthus ( On 

 Population, that natural selection was the inevi 

 table result of the rapid increase of all organic 

 beings.&quot; And he justly describes his own cardi 

 nal principle as &quot; the doctrine of Malthus applied 

 with manifold force to the whole animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms.&quot; It was with man that 

 Malthus, an English reactionary against the social 

 optimism of the school of Rousseau, was primarily, 

 if not exclusively, concerned. He saw a barrier 

 set to the realization of their dream of the happi- 



