334 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



people the whole habitable portion of the globe, is a 

 fact which has only been realised since Malthus, and, 

 on a much larger and more general scale, Darwin and 

 Wallace have drawn attention to it 1 This being 

 generally admitted, the questions arise : What are these 

 automatic checks, and what results do they produce ? 

 It is evidently quite a new line of reasoning, unknown 

 to former naturalists, or only sporadically and fragment- 

 arily pursued by them ; but it introduces us at once 

 into nature itself, away from the class-room and the 

 museum, where we hear of the forces and laws of nature 

 in their abstract mathematical development, or where \ve 

 behold specimens arranged peacefully and lif elessly side by 

 side. We are face to face with the fierce and continuous 

 conflict which is unceasingly going on around us, and 

 realise the endless changes which it must be producing. 

 4 Among the many influences which the Darwinian 



CMUM . 



- I - view has had in opposite directions on the thought of 

 our age, none is greater or more fundamental than 

 this, that whereas before Darwin naturalists stepped 



1 On the publication of the Species,' historical sketch to later 



* Origin of Species,' Darwin re- editions). Another anticipation was 



ceived many letters pointing out I that of Patrick Matthew in 1831, in 



earlier anticipations of his views. ! his work on ' Naval Timber and 



The more important of these bear- | Arboriculture.' "Unfortunately 



ing upon descent and change have ! the view was given very briefly in 



been referred to in the present scattered passages in an appendix 



chapter. The special principle of 

 natural selection seems to have 

 been already foreseen by Dr Wells 

 in 1S13. and published in his 

 famous ' Two Essays upon Dew and 

 Single Vision * in ~1818- " In this 

 paper he distinctly recognises the 

 principle of natural selection, and 



this is the first recognition which 

 h* been indicated" ('Origin of 



to a work on a different subject, so 

 that it remained unnoticed until 

 Mr Matthew himself drew atten- 

 tion to it in the ' Gardeners' 

 Chronicle' on April 7, 1860. . . . 

 He clearly saw the full force of the 

 principle of natural selection " 

 (lac. eit., p. ivi). Neither of 



these writings was known to 

 ('Origin of Darwin in 1859. 



