416 THE BIOCOSMOS HISTORICAL. 



same time in geometrical ratio. Again looms 

 up portentous that Natural Sele-ction among 

 men in a social condition, with the survival 

 of the fittest and subsidence of the less fit. 

 This book seems to have dropped down upon 

 Darwin's table at the pivotal psychological 

 moment. Listen to his own record of the mat- 

 ter in his Autobiography : 



"In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months 

 after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I 

 happened to read for amusement Malthus on 

 Population, and being well prepared to appre- 

 ciate the struggle for existence which every- 

 where goes on from long-continued observa- 

 tion of plants and animals, it struck me that 

 under these circumstances favorable varia- 

 tions would tend to be preserved, and unfa- 

 vorable ones to be destroyed. The result of 

 this would be the formation of new species. 

 Here then at last I had got a theory by which 

 to work.' 1 



So Darwin traces his first glimpse of the 

 theory of Evolution through Natural Selec- 

 tion, and acknowledges that he derives his 

 idea from Malthus ; only he transfers the strug- 

 gle from social man to the vaster population 

 of plants and animals. The British Island- 

 ers had become profoundly conscious of this 

 struggle in their midst, for it had received em- 

 phatic expression not only in Eicardo and 



