370 THE GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 



consequence (contrary to what would appear from America) 

 of non-adaptation of circumstances." 



The first part of the next extract has a similar bearing. 

 The end of the passage is of much interest, as showing that 

 he had at this early date visions of the far-reaching character 

 of the theory of evolution : 



" With belief of transmutation and geographical grouping, 

 we are led to endeavour to discover causes of change ; the 

 manner of adaptation (wish of parents ? ?), instinct and struct- 

 ure becomes full of speculation and lines of observation. 

 View of generation being condensation,* test of highest or- 

 ganisation intelligible .... My theory would give zest to 

 recent and fossil comparative anatomy ; it would lead to the 

 ^tudy of instincts, heredity, and mind-heredity, whole [of] 

 metaphysics. 



" It would lead to closest examination of hybridity and 

 generation, causes of change in order to know what we have 

 come from and to what we tend to what circumstances 

 favour crossing and what prevents it this, and direct exam- 

 ination of direct passages of structure in species, might lead 

 to laws of change, which would then be [the] main object of 

 study, to guide our speculations." 



The following two extracts have a similar interest ; the 

 second is especially interesting, as it contains the germ of 

 concluding sentence of the ' Origin of Species ' : f 



" Before the attraction of gravity discovered it might have 

 been said it was as great a difficulty to account for the 

 movement of all [planets] by one law, as to account for each 

 separate one ; so to say that all mammalia were born from 



*I imagine him to mean that each generation is " condensed" to a 

 small number of the best organized individuals. 



f 'Origin of Species' (edit, i.), p. 490: " There is a grandeur in this 

 view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into 

 a few forms or into one ; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on 

 according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless 

 forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being 

 evolved." 



