2l8 THE METHOD OF DARWIN. 



of the problem and the data from which it was 

 to be solved, could not have derived the cause 

 from an analysis of the effects ; and yet very 

 few problems like this were ever solved by 

 pure induction. It may be possible to infer 

 the nature of a cause from the nature of the 

 effects, but nearly always observers manage to 

 catch a glimpse of the cause at work. Then, 

 by a generalization, the cause is extended to all 

 the other effects of the same kind. 



In October, 1838, at the end of fifteen 

 months of work on Baconian principles, with- 

 out any theory, he read Malthus on Population 

 for amusement. 1 There had been much dis- 

 cussion in the eighteenth century concerning 

 the vice and misery in human society. It 

 was quite commonly believed that they were 

 due to the organization of society, and tha-t 

 they could be eliminated by reorganization of 

 society according to some ideal. The father 

 of Malthus shared this view; but the son, in 

 discussion with him, took the position that, no 

 matter how society might be organized, vice and 

 misery would follow inevitably from the fact 

 that the human race naturally increases more 

 rapidly than the means of subsistence. This 

 notion was finally developed into the " Prin- 



1 Life and Letters, Vol. I. p. 68. 



