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118 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



ing struggle to gain fresh food and new energy, 

 while at the same time it is involved in a many- 

 sided conflict with hordes of lesser and greater 

 foes. It must prevail over all of them, or it must 

 surrender unconditionally and die. There is no com- 

 promise, for the vast totality we individualize as the 

 environment is stern and unyielding, and it never 

 relents for even a moment's truce. 



To live, then, is to be adapted for successful warfare ; 

 and the question as to the mode of origin of species 

 may be restated as an inquiry into the origin of the 

 manifold adaptations by which species are enabled to 

 meet the conditions of life. Why is adaptation a 

 universal phenomenon of organic nature ? 



The answer to this query given by Darwinism may 

 be stated so simply as to seem almost an absurdity. It 

 is, that if there ever were any unadapted organisms, 

 they have disappeared, leaving the world to their more 

 efficient kin. Natural selection proves to be a continu- 

 ous process of trial and error on a gigantic scale, for 

 all of living nature is involved. Its elements are clear 

 and real ; indeed, they are so obvious when our attention 

 is called to them that we wonder why their effects 

 were not understood ages ago. These elements are 

 (1) the universal occurrence of variation, (2) an excessive 

 natural rate of multiplication, (3) the struggle for 

 existence entailed by the foregoing, (4) the consequent 

 elimination of the unfit and the survival of only those 

 that are satisfactorily adapted, and (5) the inheritance 

 of the congenital variations that make for success in 

 the struggle for existence. It is true that these elements 

 are by no means the ultimate causes of evolution, but 



