ON THE LATEST FORM OF THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 99 
process, and then a third, and so on indefinitely; so that the divergence from the 
parent stock, at first slight and unimportant, may be extended as far as we please, 
till it will bridge over the interval between the two extremes of animal life. Thus, 
if time enough be allowed for the process, we can account for the development of man 
himself out of a zoóphyte. 
4. The Struggle for Life. — Every species of animal and vegetable life, the human 
species included, can multiply its own numbers without end, this capability being 
always exercised according to the law of a geometrical progression. If it were ex- 
erted to the utmost, without any check from external circumstances, any species might 
be so multiplied that it would soon need to occupy the whole face of the earth. But 
as this power is possessed by all, there must be perpetual competition between them 
for the ground and for food. A battle for existence is constantly going on, the stronger 
species always tending to push out the weaker, the one better adapted to the locality 
or the strife forever usurping the place of its less qualified rival. Hence the extinction 
of the countless races whose existence is now known only from their remains imbedded 
in the rocks. | 
5. Natural Selection. — Through the three processes of Variation, Nature is per- 
petually furnishing fresh combatants for this unceasing strife; and any peculiarity, 
however slight, of one of the new races, may be a source of strength or weakness, 
and thus lead to victory or defeat in the contest, — that is, to the preservation or ex- 
tinction of one or more parties to it. Each variation, if it be an improvement in the 
adaptation of an organ to a function, or of a species to its locality or environment of 
circumstances, will tend to preserve the race; if the opposite, to kill it out. Thus 
the nicest adaptations of means to ends are accounted for, without any necessity of sup- 
posing that they were intentional or designed. The success, however insured, of any 
new-comer over its immediate competitor, is often attended with a train of consequences 
fatal to the continuance of a whole set of pre-existent species, and favorable to the 
ultimate introduction of new ones in their place. à 
It appears from this analysis, that the appellati niin e Darwin has given to 
his own theory is a misnomer. He calls it * the Origin of Species by Midas of Nat- 
ural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.” But 
it is evident that the origin of species is fully accounted for, if e all, by the vets "on 
steps of Variation, which alone explain the introduction and indefinite multiplication 
of new forms of life; of the two remaining steps, one, the Struggle for Life, is of — 
only to account for the extinction of species formerly in mene: and the other, Natural 
Selection, is adduced merely to explain that nice adaptation of means to ends, so ap- 
