to explain the process of Evolution is the part played by the
struggle for existence. All naturalists in all ages must have known
something of the operations of "Nature red in tooth and claw"; but it
was left for this great theory to suggest that vast extermination is
a necessary condition of progress, and even of maintaining the ground
already gained.

Realising that fitness is the outcome of this fierce struggle, thus
turned to account for the first time, we are sometimes led to associate
the recognition of adaptation itself too exclusively with Natural
Selection. Adaptation had been studied with the warmest enthusiasm
nearly forty years before this great theory was given to the scientific
world, and it is difficult now to realise the impetus which the works
of Paley gave to the study of Natural History. That they did inspire the
naturalists of the early part of the last century is clearly shown in
the following passages.

In the year 1824 the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford was intrusted to the
care of J.S. Duncan of New College. He was succeeded in this office by
his brother, P.B. Duncan, of the same College, author of a History of
the Museum, which shows very clearly the influence of Paley upon the
study of nature, and the dominant position given to his teachings:
"Happily at this time (1824) a taste for the study of natural history
had been excited in the University by Dr Paley's very interesting
work on Natural Theology, and the very popular lectures of Dr Kidd on
Comparative Anatomy, and Dr Buckland on Geology." In the arrangement of
the contents of the Museum the illustration of Paley's work was given
the foremost place by J.S. Duncan: "The first division proposes to
familiarize the eye to those relations of all natural objects which form
the basis of argument in Dr Paley's Natural Theology; to induce a mental
habit of associating the view of natural phenomena with the conviction
that they are the media of Divine manifestation; and by such association
to give proper dignity to every branch of natural science." (From
"History and Arrangement of the Ashmolean Museum" by P.B. Duncan: see
pages vi, vii of "A Catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum", Oxford, 1836.)

The great naturalist, W.J. Burchell, in his classical work shows the
same recognition of adaptation in nature at a still earlier date.
Upon the subject of collections he wrote ("Travels in the Interior of
Southern Africa", London, Vol. I. 1822, page 505. The refe