14 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



solve the problem of evolution is the account 

 taken of the struggle for existence, and the role 

 assigned to it. This struggle is keenly appre- 

 ciated in Tennyson's noble poem, In Memoriam, 

 the dedication of which is dated 1849, ten years 

 before the Origin. The poet is disquieted by : — 



" Nature red in tooth and claw 

 With ravine, ..." 



and by 



"... finding that of fifty seeds 

 She often brings but one to bear." 



It is interesting to note that the obvious under- 

 statement of this last passage is corrected in the 

 author's notes published by his son a few years 

 ago. In these we find " for fifty " read 

 " myriad." The poignant sense of the waste of 

 individual Hves is brought into close relation in 

 the poem with the destruction of the type or 

 species : — 



" So careful of the type she seems, 

 So careless of the single life; 



' So careful of the type ' ? but no. 



From scarped cliif and quarried stone 

 She cries ' A thousand types are gone : 



I care for nothing, all shall go.' " 



In this association between the struggle for 

 existence waged by individuals and the extinction 

 and succession of species we seem to approach 

 the central idea of Darwin and Wallace. I asked 

 Dr. Grove of Newport in the Isle of Wight if he 



