Page:Carroll Lane Fenton - Darwin and the Theory of Evolution.djvu/15

 12 famous essay on Population the idea that, inasmuch as the struggle for food and other necessities of life was just as pressing among all other organisms as among man, there was a ready explanation of the means by which a purely natural selection could be carried on age after age, without the slightest necessity for guidance by some superior intellect. Under such conditions it would be only natural that the favorable variations would tend to be preserved, while the unfavorable ones were destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. "Here then," says Darwin, "I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In June, 1842, I first allowed myself the satisfaction