EARLY VIEWS 51 



the less capable members of a community must suffer 

 from poverty; and this is only partly relieved by high 

 infant mortahty, famines, and other abnormal causes. 

 These facts suggest the conclusion that the weak must 

 go to the wall, and the fittest alone can survive in the 

 struggle for existence. 



Darwin's view was partially anticipated in a com- 

 munication which was read in 18 13 before the Royal 

 Society in England by Dr. W. C. Wells, and which was 

 an attempt to explain the differentiation and distribu- 

 tion of human races. Calling attention to the fact that 

 no two human individuals are exactly alike, he urged 

 that in every particular region some would be better 

 fitted to resist the prevailing diseases than their fel- 

 lows, who would gradually perish, lea\ing in possses- 

 sion of the field a race suited to cHmatic conditions. 

 He thus explained the existence of dark races in warm 

 countries. 



In the meantime Lamarck's explanation of evolu- 

 tion by the inheritance of acquired characters was 

 adopted with modifications by Herbert Spencer, in his 

 Principles of Psychology, which was pubHshed in 1855, 

 three years before Mr. Darwdn first published his theory 

 of natural selection. Mr. Spencer came ultimately to 

 recognize the factor of natural selection, but continued 

 to maintain that primary importance must be attrib- 

 uted to the Lamarckian factor in any adequate theory 

 of evolution. 



