The Problem of the Origin of Species as it Appeared to Darwin in 1859 and as it Appears to us To-day¹

Abstract

The first of these objects, that is, the establishment of a belief in descent with modification, was always held by my father to be the more important of the two; for I once heard him say, if a recollection of about fifty years' standing may be trusted, that “after all, evolution is the great thing, not natural selection.”—LEONARD DARWIN, “Organic Evolution,” pp. 1, 2.