These facts suggested evolution, and without evolution
appeared to be meaningless.
Evolution and its motive cause were the problems which "haunted" him for
the next twenty years. The first step towards a possible solution was
the "opening of a notebook for facts in relation to the origin of
species" in 1837, two years before the publication of his Journal. From
the very commencement of his literary and scientific work, a rule
rigidly adhered to was that of interspersing his main line of thought
and research by reading books touching on widely diverging subjects; and
it was thus, no doubt, that during October, 1838, he read "for
amusement" Malthus's "Essay on Population"; not, as he himself affirms,
with any definite idea as to its intimate bearing on the subject so near
his heart. But the immediate result was that the idea of Natural
Selection at once arose in his mind, and, in his own words, he "had a
theory by which to work."
In May and June, 1842, during a visit to Maer and Shrewsbury, he wrote
his first "pencil sketch of Species theory," but not until two years
later (1844) did he venture to enlarge this to one of 230 folio pages,
"a wonderfully complete presentation of the arguments familiar to us in
the 'Origin.
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