As soon as
I had become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species
were mutable productions, I could not avoid the belief that man
must come under the same law. Accordingly I collected notes on
the subject for my own satisfaction, and not for a long time with
any intention of publishing. Although in the 'Origin of Species'
the derivation of any particular species is never discussed, yet
I thought it best, in order that no honourable man should accuse
me of concealing my views, to add that by the work "light would
be thrown on the origin of man and his history." It would have
been useless and injurious to the success of the book to have
paraded, without giving any evidence, my conviction with respect
to his origin.
But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the
doctrine of the evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable
to work up such notes as I possessed, and to publish a special
treatise on the origin of man. I was the more glad to do so, as
it gave me an opportunity of fully discussing sexual selection--a
subject which had always greatly interested me. This subject,
and that of the variation of our domestic productions, together
with the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, and the
intercrossing of plants, are the sole subjects which I have been
able to write about in full, so as to use all the materials which
I have collected.
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