calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus
preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views." ("Origin of
Species" (6th edition), page xvii.) Its author, Robert Chambers (1802-
1871) was in part a Buffonian--maintaining that environment moulded
organisms adaptively, and in part a Goethian--believing in an inherent
progressive impulse which lifted organisms from one grade of organisation
to another.

AS REGARDS NATURAL SELECTION.

The only thinker to whom Darwin was directly indebted, so far as the theory
of Natural Selection is concerned, was Malthus, and we may once more quote
the well-known passage in the Autobiography: "In October, 1838, that is,
fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read
for amusement 'Malthus on Population', and being well prepared to
appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-
continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once
struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend
to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this
would be the formation of new species." ("The Life and Letters of Charles
Darwin", Vol. 1. page 83. London, 1887.)

Although Malthus gives no adumbration of the idea of Natural Selection in
his exposition of the eliminative processes which go on in mankind, the
suggestive value of his essay is undeniable, as is strikingly borne out by
the fact that it gave to Alfred Russel Wallace also "the long-sought clue
to the effective agent in the evolution of organic species." (A.R.
Wallace, "My Life, A Record of Events and Opinions", London, 1905, Vol. 1.
page 232.) One day in Ternate when he was resting between fits of fever,
something brought to his recollection the work of Malthus which he had read