iv MODERN EVOLUTION 153 



that ' the full force of the principle of natural selec- 

 tion ' is there, and, in referring to it in a letter to 

 Lyell, he adds that 'one may be excused in not 

 having discovered the fact in a work on Naval 

 Timber ! ' 



Five years after this, another pre-Darwinian was 

 unearthed, and, like Patrick Matthew, in unsuspected 

 company. An American savant, Dr. W. C. Wells, read 

 a paper before the Royal Society in 1813 on A White 

 Female, Part of whose Skin resembles that of a Negro, 

 but this was not published till 1 8 1 8, when it formed 

 part of a volume including the author's famous Two 

 Essays upon Dew and Single Vision. In his ' His- 

 torical Sketch ' Darwin says that Wells ' distinctly 

 recognises the principle of natural selection, and this 

 is the first recognition which has been indicated ; but 

 he applies it only to the races of man, and to certain 

 characters alone. ... Of the accidental varieties of 

 man, which would occur among the first few and 

 scattered inhabitants of the middle regions of Africa, 

 some one would be better fitted than the others to 

 bear the diseases of the country. This race would 

 consequently multiply, while the others would de- 

 crease ; not only from their inability to sustain the 

 attacks of disease, but from their incapacity of con- 

 tending with their more vigorous neighbours.' 



When the simplicity of the long-hidden solution 

 is brought home, we can understand Huxley's reflec- 

 tion on mastering the central idea of the Origin : 

 ' How extremely stupid not to have thought of that ! ' 

 Twelve years elapsed before Darwin followed up 

 his world-shaking book with the Descent of Man. 

 But the ground had been prepared for its reception 



