4 oo MY LIFE 



come useful, contented, and happy members of society, I 

 became much more tolerant. I learnt also to distrust all first 

 impressions; for I repeatedly came to enjoy the society of 

 people whose appearance or manner had at first repelled me, 

 and even in the most apparently trivial-minded was able to 

 find some common ground of interest or occupation. I feel 

 myself that my character has continuously improved, and 

 that this is owing chiefly to the teaching of spiritualism, that 

 we are in every act and thought of our lives here building up 

 a character which will largely determine our happiness or 

 misery hereafter; and also, that we obtain the greatest happi- 

 ness ourselves by doing all we can to make those around us 

 happy. 



As I have referred in various parts of this volume to ideas, 

 or suggestions, or solutions of biological problems, which I 

 have been the first to put forth, it may be convenient if I 

 here give a brief account of the more important of them, 

 some of which have, I think, been almost entirely overlooked. 



1. The first and perhaps the most important of these is my 

 independent discovery of the theory of natural selection in 

 1858, in my paper on " The Tendency of Varieties to depart 

 indefinitely from the Original Type." This is reprinted in my 

 ' Natural Selection and Tropical Nature " ; and it has been 



so fully recognized by Darwin himself and by naturalists 

 generally that I need say no more about it here. I have 

 given a rather full account of how it first occurred to me in 

 chapter xxii. of this work. 



2. In 1864 I published an article on " The Development 

 of Human Races under the Law of Natural Selection," the 

 most original and important part of which was that in which 

 I showed that so soon as man's intellect and physical struc- 

 ture led him to use fire, to make tools, to grow food, to 

 domesticate animals, to use clothing, and build houses, the 

 action of natural selection was diverted from his body to his 

 mind, and thenceforth his physical form remained stable 



