SECOND EDITION, WITH CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS.
New York:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1871.
[The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved.]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY HEAD, HOLE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET,
AND IVY LANE, E.C.
The present volume consists of essays which I have contributed tovarious periodicals, or read before scientific societies during the lastfifteen years, with others now printed for the first time. The two firstof the series are printed without alteration, because, having gained methe reputation of being an independent originator of the theory of“natural selection,” they may be considered to have somehistorical value. I have added to them one or two very short explanatorynotes, and have given headings to subjects, to make them uniform withthe rest of the book. The other essays have been carefully corrected,often considerably enlarged, and in some cases almost rewritten, so asto express more fully and more clearly the views which I hold at thepresent time; and as most of them originally appeared in publicationswhich have a very limited circulation, I believe that the larger portionof this volume will be new to many of my friends and to most of myreaders.
I now wish to say a few words on the reasons which have led me topublish this work. The second essay, especially when taken in connectionwith the first, contains an outline sketch of the theory of the originof species (by means of what was afterwards termed by Mr.Darwin—“natural selection,”) as conceived[iv]by me before I had the least notion of the scope and nature of Mr. Darwin’slabours. They were published in a way not likely to attract theattention of any but working naturalists, and I feel sure that many whohave heard of them, have never had the opportunity of ascertaining howmuch or how little they really contain. It therefore happens, that,while some writers give me more credit than I deserve, others may verynaturally class me with Dr. Wells and Mr. Patrick Matthew, who, as Mr.Darwin has shown in the historical sketch given in the 4th and 5thEditions of the “Origin of Species,” certainly propoundedthe fundamental principle of “natural selection” beforehimself, but who made no further use of that principle, and failed tosee its wide and immensely important applications.
The present work will, I venture to think, prove, that I both saw at thetime the value and scope of the law which I had discovered, and havesince been able to apply it to some purpose in a few original lines ofinvestigation. But here my claims cease. I have felt all my life, and Istill feel, the most sincere satisfaction that Mr. Darwin had been atwork long before me, and that it was not left for me to attempt to write“The Origin of Species.” I have long since measured my ownstrength, and know well that it would be quite unequal to that task. Farabler men than myself may confess, that they have not that untiringpatience in accumulating, and that wonderful skill in using, largemasses of facts of the [v]most varied kind,—that wide and accurate physiologicalknowledge,—that acuteness in devising and skill i