STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. loi 



It may perhaps make the workings of Mr. Darwin's 

 mind clearer to the reader if I give the various read- 

 ings of this passage as taken from the three most 

 important editions of the " Origin of Species." 



In 1859 it stood, "Further, we must suppose that 

 there is a power always intently watching each slight 

 accidental alteration," &c. 



In 1 86 1 it stood, "Further, we must suppose that 

 there is a power (natural selection) always intently 

 watching each slight accidental alteration," &e. 



And in 1 869, " Further, we must suppose that there 

 is a power represented by natural selection or the 

 survival of the fittest always intently watching each 

 slight alteration," &c.* 



The hesitating feeble gait of one who fears a pitfall 

 at every step, so easily recognisable in the " numerous, 

 successive, slight alterations " in the foregoing passage, 

 may be traced in many another page of the " Origin 

 of Species " by those who will be at the trouble of 

 comparing the several editions. It is only when this 

 is done, and the working of Mr. Darwin's mind can 

 be seen as though it were the twitchings of a dog's nose, 

 that any idea can be formed of the difficulty in which 

 he found himself involved by his initial blunder of 

 thinking he had got a distinctive feature which entitled 

 him to claim the theory of evolution as an original 

 idea of his own. He found his natural selection hang 

 round his neck like a millstone. There is hardly a 

 page in the " Origin of Species " in which traces of the 

 struggle going on in Mr. Darwin's mind are not dis- 



^ * Page 226. 



