NATURAL SELECTION. I51 
their more vigorous neighbours. The colour of this vigorous 
race I take for granted, from what has been already said, 
would be dark. But the same disposition to form varieties 
still existing, a darker and a darker race would in the course 
of time occur ; and as the darkest would be the best fitted 
for the climate, this would at length become the most pre- 
valent, if not the only race, in the particular country in 
which it had originated.” He then extends these same 
views to the white inhabitants of colder climates. Although 
Wells clearly expresses and recognizes the principle of 
natural selection, yet it is applied by him only to the very 
limited problem of the origin of human races, and not at 
all to that of the origin of animal and vegetable species. 
Darwin’s great merit in having independently developed 
the Theory of Selection, and having brought it to complete 
and well merited recognition, is as little affected by the 
earlier and long forgotten remark of Wells,‘as by some other 
fragmentary observations about natural selection made by 
Patrick Mathew, and hidden in his book on “Timber for 
Shipbuilding, and the Cultivation of Trees,” which appeared 
in 1831. The celebrated traveller, Alfred Wallace, who 
developed the Theory of Selection independently of Darwin, 
and had published it in 1858, simultaneously with Darwin’s 
first contribution, likewise stands far behind his greater and 
elder countryman in regard to profound conception, as 
well as to extended application of the theory. In fact Dar- 
win, by his extremely comprehensive and ingenious develop- 
ment of the whole doctrine, has acquired a fair claim to see 
the theory connected with his own name. 
This Theory of Selection, Darwinism in its proper sense, 
to the consideration of which we now turn our attention, 
