My
first note-book was opened in July, 1837. 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 skilful 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 keystone of man's success in making useful races of
animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms
living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me.
In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my
systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus's _Essay on
the Principle of Population_, and being well prepared to appreciate the
struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long-continued
observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me
that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be
preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed.
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