Here Darwin became indebted to Dr. Malthus who, but for that indebtedness would have been forgotten ere this. In his “Essay on Population” Malthus points out various “checks” to the increase of population. His main theory was that the population tends to increase more rapidly than the food supply. The Reverend Doctor, having begotten twelve children of his own, felt “called” to point out to British parents the desirability and even necessity of limiting their families in the interest of society. Malthus applied his theory to human society where it is palpably false. Darwin transferred it to the natural world where it proved to be a great truth. The obvious explanation of this paradox is: that man, by agriculture and industry, can increase his food supply to a greater proportion than any probable or even possible increase of population. Animals cannot; their food supply is beyond their control; they have no power to artificially increase the supply. This difference totally destroyed the value of Malthus’ book as a treatise on political economy. His immortality is assured solely because he accidentally contributed a link to Darwin’s chain. And now Darwin has travelled on his great journey thus far: Animals propagate enormously but their population generally does not increase. The main reason for this, though there are others, is, that their number is limited by the amount of food available. Therefore, if two parents produce ten thousand only two or three individuals will reach maturity: the rest will perish. The remainder of the problem, which still remained for Darwin to solve, was: first, is there any law which determines which shall survive and which shall be destroyed; and second, if there is such a law, will that law explain and thus, at the same time, prove, the origin of new species? It is precisely because Darwin solved both points of this tremendous problem with a clear and irrefutable affirmative that he occupies the foremost place in the annals of science. Professor John Fiske said: “There is one thing which a man of original scientific or philosophical genius in a rightly ordered world should never be called upon to do. He should never be called upon to earn a living; for that is a wretched waste of energy, in which the highest intellectual power is sure to suffer serious detriment, and runs the risk of being frittered away into hopeless ruin.” Whether Fiske was right or wrong the only pertinent point here is that Darwin was spared that necessity.