It was this fact, therefore, which led him, on his return home in
the autumn of 1887, to begin the preparation of the book ("Darwinism")
published in 1889. The method he chose was that of following as closely
as possible the lines of thought running through the "Origin of
Species," to which he added many new features, in addition to laying
special emphasis on the parts which had been most generally
misunderstood. Indeed, so fairly and impartially did he set forth the
general principles of the Darwinian theory that he was able to say:
"Some of my critics declare that I am more Darwinian than Darwin
himself, and in this, I admit, they are not far wrong."
His one object, as set out in the Preface, was to treat the problem of
the origin of species from the standpoint reached after nearly thirty
years of discussion, with an abundance of new facts and the advocacy of
many new and old theories. As it had frequently been considered a
weakness on Darwin's part that he based his evidence primarily on
experiments with domesticated animals and cultivated plants, Wallace
desired to secure a firm foundation for the theory in the variation of
organisms in a state of nature. It was in order to make these facts
intelligible that he introduced a number of diagrams, just as Darwin was
accustomed to appeal to the facts of variation among dogs and pigeons.
Another change which he considered important was that of taking the
struggle for existence first, because this is the fundamental phenomenon
on which Natural Selection depends.
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