434 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



ciples " would have been reconsidered before the work had 

 passed to the ninth edition in 1853. He was convinced that 

 species went out of existence one by one, through natural 

 causes, and that they came in one by one, bearing the impress 

 of their immediate predecessors ; but he saw no way to con- 

 nect the two through natural operations. Nor, in fact, had 

 any of the evolutionists been able to assign real causes capable 

 of leading on such variations as are of well-known occurrence 

 to wider and specific or generic differences. Just here came 

 Darwin. When upon the spot he had perceived that the 

 animals of the Galapagos must be modified forms derived 

 from the adjacent continent, and he soon after worked out 

 the doctrine of natural selection. This supplied what was 

 wanting for the condensation of opinions and beliefs, and the 

 collocation of rapidly accumulating facts, into a consistent 

 and workable scientific theory, under a principle which un- 

 questionably could directly explain much, and might indirectly 

 explain more. 



It is not merely that Darwin originated and applied a new 

 principle. Not to speak of Wallace, his contemporary, who 

 came to it later, his countryman, Dr. Wells, as Mr. Darwin 

 points out, " distinctly recognizes the principle of natural 

 selection, and this is the first recognition which has been 

 indicated ; but he applied it only to the races of men, and to 

 certain characters alone." Darwin, like the rest of the world, 

 was unaware of this anticipation until he was preparing the 

 fourth edition of his " Origin of Species," in 1866, when he 

 promptly called attention to it, perhaps magnifying its impor- 

 tance. However this be, Darwin appears to have been first 

 and alone in apprehending and working out the results which 

 necessarily come from the interaction of the surrounding 

 agencies and conditions under which plants and animals exist, 

 including, of course, their action upon each other. Personify- 

 ing the ensemble of these and the consequences, — namely, 

 the survival only of the fittest in the struggle for life, — under 

 the term of Natural Selection, Mr. Darwin, with the instinct 

 of genius divined, and with the ability of a master worked 

 out its pregnant and far-reaching applications. He not only 



