II THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 71 



had been perused by his private friends fifteen or 

 sixteen years before. Perplexed in what manner 

 to do full justice both to his friend and to himself, 

 Mr. Darwin placed the matter in the hands of 

 Dr. Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell, by whose advice 

 he communicated a brief abstract of his own views 

 to the Lirmaean Society, at the same time that 

 Mr. Wallace's paper was read. Of that abstract, 

 the work on the " Origin of Species " is an enlarge- 

 ment ; but a complete statement of Mr. Darwin's 

 doctrine is looked for in the large and well- 

 illustrated work which he is said to be preparing 

 for publication. 



The Darwinian hypothesis has the merit of 

 being eminently simple and comprehensible in 

 principle, and its essential positions may be stated 

 in a very few words : all species have been pro- 

 duced by the development of varieties from 

 common stocks ; by the conversion of these, first 

 into permanent races and then into new species, 

 by the process of natural selection, which process 

 is essentially identical with that artificial selection 

 by which man has originated the races of domestic 

 animals the struggle for existence taking the 

 place of man, and exerting, in the case of natural 

 selection, that selective action which he performs 

 in artificial selection. \ 



The evidence brought forward by Mr. Darwin in 

 support of his hypothesis is of three kinds. First, 



34 



