Darwin Evolves His Natural Selection

Darwin’s belief that local conditions had made one kind of plant vary until it became several kinds, in the case of the Galapagos Islands, was strengthened when he began to study the history of common domestic animals, horses, dogs, and cats, and of plants like wheat and barley, and the garden flowers. He saw that mankind, by selecting and breeding the animals and plants that were most advantageous to his needs or ideas of beauty had so changed domestic animals and crops and flowers that they were now hardly to be recognized as descendants from their wild ancestors.

Dogs, which have mostly been derived from one species of wolf, have been bred into so many different kinds that it is almost incredible that the dachshund, the collie, the spaniel and the greyhound were once alike, yet they were. These ideas, and the idea that the struggle for existence would eliminate all animals, and plants unfitted to survive in the keen competition of this old world, and would bring to the foreground all types that by hardiness, or speed, or cleverness could get on in life, enabled him to form his great theory of Natural Selection.

As it happened, Darwin did not discover this idea alone. His friend Wallace, then far away in the Pacific Islands, wrote him a letter telling of a new theory of his, which proved to be Darwin's own ideas. Both men agreed to let the other have the credit, but in the end they presented their first lectures on the subject together. These were given before an audience of conservative scientists, and nobody present realized the greatness of the words to which they were listening. Not till Darwin published his book, "The Origin of Species," was a sensation really created.

Darwin was at once attacked and called all kinds of mannerless names, both by scientists and by people who were utterly unscientific but nevertheless had made up their minds on the matter. His friends defended him hotly and brilliantly though sometimes over-zealously. Darwin, a gentle and tolerant man, never entered the discussions, and no matter what unjust things were said against him, was never stung into an angry reply. Nevertheless it was he who revolutionized science in the last Century and liberated natural history from the iron rule of reverence for its old-time masters. As it chances Darwin was born on the same day, almost in the same hour, as another great liberator, Abraham Lincoln. Their birthday was February 12, 1809. Darwin always said he had no literary style, but as a matter of fact he had the finest gift a stylist can have, the power of writing with absolute clarity and immense enthusiasm that sweeps you along as you read. His long life proved over and over again that any one, located anywhere, has a chance to make momentous "finds" if he will look for them. And these can still be made.

By: davidbunch

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