EVOLUTION 7 



Darwin and Wallace were communicated to the Linnean 

 Society! But it is of interest to note that Spencer himself, 

 as in the case of certain other pre-Darwinian writers,. had 

 come very near the conception of Natural Selection with- 

 out grasping its full significance. In the Westminster 

 Review for April, 1852, there appeared an article on 

 a ' Theory of Population ', in which occurs the following 

 idea, afterwards transferred to the Principles of Biology : — 



' And here, indeed, without further illustration, it will 

 be seen that premature death, under all its forms and 

 from all its causes, cannot fajl to work in the same direc- 

 tion. For as those prematurely carried off must, in the 

 average of cases be those in whGm the power of self- 

 preServation is the least, it unavoidably follows that those 

 left behind to continue the race must be those in whom 

 the power of self-preservation is the greatest^-must be 

 the select of their generation. So that whether the 

 dangers of existence be of the kind produced by excess 

 of fertility, or of any other kind, it is clear that by the 

 ceaseless exercise of the faculties needed to contend with 

 them, and by the death of all men who fail to contend 

 with them successfully, there is ensured a constant pro- 

 gress towards a higher degree of skill, intelligence, and 

 self-reigulation — a better co-ordination of actions — a more 

 complete life.' 



The effect of the publication of the Origin of Species 

 upon the mind of an Evolutionist of such pronounced 

 views as Spencer is an interesting episode in the history 

 of his work. With scientific candour he at once admitted 

 the cogency of Natural Selection. Up to that time organic 

 evolution had been for him, tacitly if not avowedly, 

 Lamarckism — ^the only mechanism of development tlien 

 known .2 The Darwin- Wallace factor was thereafter given 

 its proper function in the process of evolution — not to the 

 exclusion of Lamarckism, but side by side therewith as 

 an efficient cause of modification. The precise terms of 

 his acceptance of the new view of species formation have 



' Autobiography, vol. iii, p. 27. 



' Buffon's ■ direct action of environment ' is included under this 

 term. 



