Volume I Part 32 (2/2)

”When one sees nipple onbeen deters under elytra of beetles--born fros, and modified--if simple creation merely, would have been born without the population at any one enera); ultienera (for otherwise the relationshi+p would converge sooner), and lastly, perhaps, soenera with few species which stand between great groups, which we are bound to consider the increasing ones?”

The last extract which I shall quote gives the germ of his theory of the relation between alpine plants in various parts of the world, in the publication of which he was forestalled by E Forbes (see volue 72) He says, in the 1837 note-book, that alpine plants, ”forenera altered, or northern plants”

When we turn to the Sketch of his theory, written in 1844 (still therefore before the second edition of the 'Journal' was completed), we find an enormous advance made on the note-book of 1837 The Sketch is an fact a surprisingly couin of Species' There is some obscurity as to the date of the short Sketch which formed the basis of the 1844 Essay

We know froe 68), that it was in June 1842 that he first wrote out a short sketch of his views (This version I cannot find, and it was probably destroyed, like so ed and re-copied in 1844) This stateiven with so much circumstance that it is almost irees also with the following extract from his Diary

1842 May 18th Went to Maer

”June 15th to Shrewsbury, and on 18th to Capel Curig During my stay at Maer and Shrewsbury (five years after coain in the introduction to the 'Origin,' page 1, he writes, ”after an interval of five years' work” [from 1837, ie in 1842], ”I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up soned by Sir C Lyell and Sir JD Hooker, which serves as an introduction to the joint paper of Messrs C Darwin and A Wallace on the 'Tendency of Species to fore 45) the essay of 1844 (extracts from which form part of the paper) is said to have been ”sketched in 1839, and copied in 1844” This statement is obviously made on the authority of a note written in my father's hand across the Table of Contents of the 1844 Essay It is to the following effect: ”This was sketched in 1839, and copied out in full, as here written and read by you in 1844” I conclude that this note was added in 1858, when the MS was sent to Sir JD Hooker (see Letter of June 29, 1858, page 476) There is also so to Mr Wallace (January 25, 1859) ht your paper very ritten and interesting It puts o!), which I y were never for an instant intended for publication; into the shade” The statement that the earliest sketch ritten in 1839 has been frequently raphical notices of my father, no doubt on the authority of the 'Linnean Journal,' but it must, I think, be considered as erroneous The erroron the Table of Contents of the 1844 MS that it was sketched in 1839, I think my father may have intended to iht out by hiraphy he speaks of the time, ”about 1839, when the theory was clearly conceived,”of 1839, when the reading of Malthus had given him the key to the idea of natural selection But this explanation does not apply to the letter to Mr Wallace; and with regard to the passage (My father certainly saw the proofs of the paper, for he added a foot-note apologising for the style of the extracts, on the ground that the ”as never intended for publication”) in the 'Linnean Journal' it is difficult to understand how it should have been allowed to re, as it clearly does, the impression that 1839 was the date of his earliest written sketch

The sketch of 1844 is written in a clerk's hand, in two hundred and thirty-one pages folio, blank leaves being alternated with the MS

with a view to amplification The text has been revised and corrected, criticisin It is divided into two parts: I ”On the variation of Organic Beings under Domestication and in their Natural State” II ”On the Evidence favourable and opposed to the view that Species are naturally formed races descended frouument of that work, on the study of doin' open with a chapter on variation under domestication and on artificial selection This is followed, in both essays, by discussions on variation under nature, on natural selection, and on the struggle for life Here, any close reseement ceases Chapter III of the Sketch, which concludes the first part, treats of the variations which occur in the instincts and habits of animals, and thus corresponds to soin' (1st edition) It thus forms a complement to the chapters which deal with variation in structure It seems to have been placed thus early in the Essay to prevent the hasty rejection of the whole theory by a reader to whoht seem impossible This is the in' is specially e 5) as one of the ”ravest difficulties on the theory” Moreover the chapter in the Sketch ends with a discussion, ”whether any particular corporeal structuresare so wonderful as to justify the rejection pri coin' finds its place in Chapter VI under ”Difficulties of the Theory” The second part seems to have been planned in accordance with his favourite point of vieith regard to his theory This is briefly given in a letter to Dr Asa Gray, November 11th, 1859: ”I cannot possibly believe that a false theory would explain so many classes of facts, as I think it certainly does explain On these grounds I drop my anchor, and believe that the difficulties will slowly disappear” On this principle, having stated the theory in the first part, he proceeds to shohat extent various wide series of facts can be explained by its means

Thus the second part of the Sketch corresponds roughly to the nine concluding Chapters of the First Edition of the 'Origin' But we in') on Instinct, which forms a chapter in the first part of the Sketch, and Chapter VIII ('Origin') on Hybridism, a subject treated in the Sketch with 'Variation under Nature' in the first part

The following list of the chapters of the second part of the Sketch will illustrate their correspondence with the final chapters of the 'Origin'

Chapter I ”On the kind of intermediateness necessary, and the nuical discussion, and corresponds to parts of Chapters VI and IX of the 'Origin'

Chapter II ”The gradual appearance and disappearance of organic beings” Corresponds to Chapter X of the 'Origin'

Chapter III ”Geographical Distribution” Corresponds to Chapters XI

and XII of the 'Origin'

Chapter IV ”Affinities and Classification of Organic beings”

Chapter V ”Unity of Type,” Morphology, Eans

These three chapters correspond to Chapter XII of the 'Origin'

Chapter VII Recapitulation and Conclusion The final sentence of the Sketch, whichin its first rough form in the Note Book of 1837, closely rese identical The 'Origin' is not divided into two ”Parts,” but we see traces of such a division having been present in the writer's mind, in this resemblance between the second part of the Sketch and the final chapters of the 'Origin' That he should speak ('Origin,' Introduction, page 5) of the chapters on transition, on instinct, on hybridisroup, may be due to the division of his early MS into two parts

Mr Huxley, as good enough to read the Sketch at ument,” and the illustrations employed are the saht is attached to the influence of external conditions in producing variation, and to the inheritance of acquired habits than in the Origin'”

It is extre to find in the Sketch the first in of Species' Fore these may be mentioned the principle of sexual Selection, which is clearly enunciated The iiven Here also occurs a statement of the law that peculiarities tend to appear in the offspring at an age corresponding to that at which they occurred in the parent