SECTION 21. PRECISE NATURE OF PROBLEM TO BE INVESTIGA TED. 237 



and which shall consequently enable us to approach its solution 

 with the least possible confusion and delay. 



Darwin entitled his master work: "The Origin of Species". 1 

 If he had called it "Evolution", this would have probably argued 

 that he either regarded evolution as restricted to life forms or 

 that in his opinion all evolution exhibited an exactly similar 

 character. Even if the title had read "The Evolution of Life", 

 "The Evolution of Life Forms", or "The Evolution of Species", 

 we should have been some distance from the plain and 

 exceedingly pointed question involved in the actual title. The 

 word "origin" implies no contentious theories, and the selection 

 of the term "species" brings the problem from the clouds 

 down to earth. Compare this title with Lamarck's "Philosophic 

 Zoologique", which places us at the mercy of the speculative 

 fancy. In otfrer words, instead of floundering in a sea of 

 ambiguities, Darwin's formulation puts us in a position to 

 defend or attack the central problem forthwith. 2 No doubt, a 

 good title or an appropriate question is mostly the result of 

 protracted labours, and suggests in not a few instances that 

 a mass of intractable matter has been reduced to comparative 

 order. Such an attempt to construct a convenient formula 

 sometimes proves to be hopeless, and is accordingly abandoned, 

 whilst at other times the quasi-single problem divides into several, 

 or is solved in the sheer endeavour to state it with the least 

 obscurity of expression. 



106. We present another significant illustration. Capita- 

 lists as a class contend that they are the source of the wealth 

 of the world, and that the rule of the worker would spell 

 universal economic ruin. On the other hand, Labourists as a 

 class aver that the wealth of the world is produced by the 

 workers, and largely wasted and most unfairly distributed by 

 the Capitalists. To the former, Labourism denotes anarchy; 

 to the latter, Capitalism signifies the social dominance of un- 

 scrupulous exploiters. To comprehend the issue, we ought 

 to affix, before proceeding any further, a precise meaning to 

 Capitalism and Labourism. If we regard the problem statically, 

 from the viewpoint of the present moment, both parties appear 

 to be, broadly speaking, in the right. If the Labourist were 

 to be placed forthwith in power, the economic structure of 



1 The idea cannot be said to have been entirely novel, and Wallace uses 

 the expression suggestively. In writing to Bates, the naturalist, he states that 

 he would "like to take some one family to study thoroughly, principally 

 with a view to the theory of the origin of species". (Quoted by Edward 

 Clodd, Pioneers of Evolution, 1902, p. 61.) And writing to the same cor- 

 respondent subsequently, he speaks of gathering facts "towards solving the 

 problem of the origin of species." (Ibid., p. 62.) 



2 Of course, the full title was On the Origin of Species by means of 

 Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle 

 for Life. Subsequently this was altered to The Origin of Species -by means 

 of Natural Selection. 



