concerned primarily with the _method_ and not with the evidences as to the
actual _fact_ of evolution. Most of those who are not familiar with the
principles of science believe that Darwin discovered this process; but
their opinion is not correct. The reality of natural change as a universal
attribute of living things had been clearly demonstrated long before
Darwin wrote the remarkable series of books whose influence has been felt
outside the domains of biology and to the very confines of organized
knowledge everywhere. The "Origin of Species" was published in 1859, and
only the last of its fourteen chapters is devoted to a statement of the
evidence that evolution is true. In this volume Darwin presented the
results of more than twenty-five years of patient study of the phenomena
of nature, utilizing the observations of wild life in many regions visited
by him when he was the naturalist of the "Beagle" during its famous voyage
around the world. He also considered at length the results of the
breeder's work with domesticated animals, and he showed for the first time
that the latter have an evolutionary significance. Because his logical
assembly of wide series of facts in this and later volumes did so much to
convince the intellectual world of the reasonableness of evolution, Darwin
is usually and wrongly hailed as the founder of the doctrine. It is
interesting to note in passing that Alfred Russel Wallace presented a
precisely similar outline of nature's workings at about the same time as
the statement by Darwin of his theory of natural selection. But Wallace
himself has said that the greater credit belongs to the latter
investigator who had worked out a more complete analysis on the basis of
far more extensive observation and research.

The fundamental point from which the doctrine of natural selection
proceeds is the fact that all creatures are more or less perfectly adapted
to the circumstances which they must meet in carrying on their lives; this
is the reason why so much has been said in earlier connections regarding