Page:Carroll Lane Fenton - Darwin and the Theory of Evolution.djvu/14

 Rh change of opinion. Thus in 1834, though still a believer in special creation, he was able to explain various facts only by admitting that species gradually became modified and, in his own words, "the subject haunted" him. Yet he was so unwilling to accept the evidence of his own observation that, in 1839, he sent his Journal to the printer with numerous references to special creation, and no mention of another explanation that seemed to him far more satisfactory.

Darwin seems to have accepted the idea of evolution, some time in 1836 or early in 1837, for he opened his first notebook in July of the latter year. Concerning his method he says, "I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed inquiries, by conversation with skillful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that selection was the keynote of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organism living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me."

The reading and abstracting continued for fifteen months before Darwin found an answer to his question as to how a method of selection akin to that practiced by the breeder might be carried out among creatures not tampered with by man. While reading Malthus' now