24 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 
the human race, so strikingly presented by Malthus, brought the 
whole question with such vividness before him that the idea of 
‘Natural Selection’ flashed upon Darwin’s mind.”’ 
CHARLES DARWIN (1809-82) 
Charles Darwin is without question the foremost figure in the 
development of the evolution idea and probably in the development 
of science in general. The publication of his book, The Origin of 
Species, in 1859, was the most important event in biological history. 
As has been already shown, Darwin’s chief ideas had been anticipated 
not by one but by several of his predecessors. Nevertheless, he 
was the first to furnish a really adequate proof of the fact of evolution 
and his causo-mechanical theory to explain the method of evolution 
was supported by a mass of systematically arranged data such as h 
been paralleled neither before nor since. Darwin was the first evolu- 
tionist effectively to employ the inductive method, that of everywhere 
seeking facts first and then devising theories to fit the facts. He 
never allowed speculation to outstrip observation, as nearly all of his} 
predecessors had done, but made theory await the amassing of facts\ 
in its support, until the accumulation of the latter seemed almost to / 
speak out the theory of themselves. Our greatest debt to Darwin is, 
due to his establishment of the factual basis of evolution; his selection, 
theory was relatively of minor significance in so far as its value in the\ 
development of the evolution idea was concerned. Yet this latter’ 
theory gained the widest acceptance among the scientifically inclined 
during the entire post-Darwinian period. It has been viciously 
assailed on all sides and has tottered repeatedly under the attacks 
of well-trained adversaries. Some of the weaker elements of the 
theory have given way under stress, and the whole selection factor 
as a primary causal factor in evolution has been seriously called into 
question; but since Darwin’s time the fact of evolution has been almost 
universally accepted. 
The story of Darwin’s life is almost a romance. ‘Born in 1809,” 
says Lull,t ‘this emancipator of human minds from the shackles of 
slavery to tradition saw the light of day upon the very day that 
ushered in the life of Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator of human 
bodies from a no more real physical bondage. Darwin studied first 
at Edinburgh, but finding medicine unsuited to his tastes, entered 
Christ’s College, Cambridge, as a candidate for the church. His love 
t Richard Swann Lull, Organic Evolution (The Macmillan Company, 1917). 
