“Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask the question, Why do some die and some live? And the answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies, the strongest, the swiftest, or the most cunning; from famine, the best hunters or those with the best digestion; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed on me that this self-acting process would necessarily _improve the race_, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain—that is, _the fittest would survive_. “At once I seemed to see the whole effect of this, that when changes of land and sea, or of climate, or of food-supply, or of enemies occurred—and we know that such changes have always been taking place—and considering the amount of individual variation that my experience as a collector had shown me to exist, then it followed that all the changes necessary for the adaptation of the species to the changing conditions would be brought about; and as great changes in the environment are always slow, there would be ample time for the change to be effected by the survival of the best fitted in every generation. In this way every part of an animal’s organisation could be modified exactly as required, and in the very process of this modification the unmodified would die out, and thus the _definite_ characters and the clear _isolation_ of each new species would be explained. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that I had at last found the long-sought-for law of nature that solved the problem of the origin of species.” This passage, with its significant phrases, “Then it suddenly flashed on me,” and “At once I seemed to see the whole effect of this,” makes very clear the subconscious element in the achieving of the momentous discovery. It also emphasises another fact indispensable to a complete understanding not alone of Wallace’s achievement but of the achievements of all men of genius: the fact that creative upsurgings from the subconscious would be valueless—would, indeed, be impossible of occurrence—in any but a mind rendered by conscious study, observation, and reflection, capable of appreciating their significance. The subconscious, let me recall, is a kind of workshop where the “ego” rummages among the memory-images of its past experiences to develop trains of thought and reach definite conclusions with a minimum of effort. Obviously the results of its rummaging will depend on the material it finds to work with; in proportion as this is rich and abundant, the subconscious upsurgings will be “worth while.” Obviously, too, both the richness of the material and the character and value of the subconscious upsurgings will ultimately depend on the character of the individual’s interests, and the extent to which these impel him to conscious study, observation, and reflection.