Exactly a year before his Malthus reading, he asks, in shorthand English: “Whether every animal produces in course of ages ten thousand varieties (influenced itself perhaps by circumstances) and those alone preserved which are well adapted?” All it takes to cement a working theory of natural selection is to modify the formula ever so slightly, and clarify that the preservation of “well adapted” forms comes from their reproductive success. And yet somehow Darwin fails to understand that he has the solution at his fingertips, and continues his enquiry for another year before “getting a theory by
...more
