422 THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE CHAP. 



tion of special sets of facts. The phoenix revived and 

 flew croaking amid the smoke of burning systems. How 

 one discussed the evolution of language, and another 

 that of industry ; how the natural history of ethics was 

 sketched by one thinker, and the growth of institutions 

 by another ; how the conception has forced its way into 

 the cloister and the political arena, and has even found 

 expression in theories of literature, art, and religion,- 

 is an often-repeated story. 



(c) We have noticed that Buffon, and, let us add, Trevi- 

 rarius, firmly maintained that the direct influence of the 

 external conditions of life was an important factor in 

 evolution. We have also seen that Erasmus Darwin 

 and Lamarck were strongly convinced of the transform- 

 ing power of use and disuse. When Charles Darwin 

 began to think and write on the origin of species, he also 

 recognised the transforming influences of function and 

 of environment. But with the Buffonian or Lamarckian 

 position he was never satisfied ; he advanced to one of 

 his own to the theory of natural selection, the char- 

 acteristic feature of Darwinism. 



Let us state this theory, which was foreseen by 

 Matthew, Wells, Naudin, and others, was developed 

 simultaneously by Darwin and by Alfred Russel Wallace, 

 and has attained remarkable acceptance throughout the 

 world. 



All plants and animals produce offspring which, though 

 like their parents, usually differ from them in possessing 

 some new features or variations. How these arise is ob- 

 scure ; they are the outcome of changes in the germinal 

 material. But throughout nature there is a struggle for 

 existence in which only a small percentage of the organisms 

 born survive to maturity or reproduction. Those which 

 survive may do so because of the individual peculiarities 

 which have made them in some way more fit to survive 

 than their fellows. Moreover the favourable variation 

 possessed by the survivors is handed on as an inheritance 

 to their offspring, and tends to be corroborated when the 

 new generation is bred from parents both possessing the 

 happily advantageous character. This natural fostering 



