[230] Essay, ii. 266 (bk. iv. ch. i.).
[231] Essay (first edition), p. 212.
[232] Ibid. i. 16 n. (bk. i. ch. ii.).
[233] See e.g. his remarks upon Condorcet in Essay, ii. 8 (bk. iii. ch. i.); and Owen in Ibid. ii. 48 (bk. iii ch. ii.).
[234] Essay, i. 15 n. (bk. i. ch. ii.); and see Ibid. (edit. of 1807) ii. 128.
[235] Ibid. (1807) ii. 128.
[236] Ibid. (1807) ii. 3 (bk. ii. ch. ii.). (Omitted in later editions.)
[237] Mr. A. R. Wallace, Darwin's fellow-discoverer of the doctrine, also learned it from Malthus. See Clodd's Pioneers of Evolution. Malthus uses the phrase 'struggle for existence' in relation to a fight between two savage tribes in the first edition of his Essay, p. 48. In replying to Condorcet, Malthus speaks (Essay, ii. 12, bk. iii. ch. i.) of the possible improvement of living organisms. He argues that, though a plant may be improved, it cannot be indefinitely improved by cultivation. A carnation could not be made as large as a tulip. It has been said that this implies a condemnation by anticipation of theories of the development of species. This is hardly correct. Malthus simply urges against Condorcet that our inability to fix limits precisely does not imply that there are no limits. This, it would seem, must be admitted on all hands. Evolution implies definite though not precisely definable limits. Life may be lengthened, but not made immortal.
[238] Essay (first edition), 353.
[239] Ibid. 42 n. (bk. iii. ch. iii.)