270 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



'perfecting. When the phenomena due to these two laws 

 first became known, through observation of the historical de- 

 velopment, the individual development, and the comparative 

 anatomy of animals and plants, naturalists were inclined to 

 trace them to a direct creative influence. It was supposed to 

 be part of the plan of the Creator, acting for a definite purpose, 

 in the course of time to develop the forms of animals and 

 plants more and more variously, and to bring them more and 

 more to a state of perfection. We shall evidently make a great 

 advance in the knowledge of nature if we reject this teleological 

 and anthropomorphic conception, and if we can prove the two 

 laws of Division of Labour and Perfecting to be the necessary 

 consequences of natural selection in the struggle for life. 



The first great law which follows directly and of necessity 

 from natural selection, is that of separation, or differentia- 

 tion, which is frequently called division of labour, or 'poly- 

 morjphism, and which Darwin speaks of as divergence of 

 character. (Gen. Morph. ii. 24^9). We understand by it the 

 general tendency of all organic individuals to develop them- 

 selves more and more diversely, and to deviate from the 

 common primary type. The cause of this general inclination 

 towards differentiation and the formation of heterogeneous 

 forms from homogeneous beginnings is, according to Darwin, 

 simply to be traced to the circumstance that the struggle for 

 life betw^een every two organisms rages all the more fiercely 

 the nearer the relation in which they stand to one another, 

 or the more nearly alike they are. This is an exceedingly 

 important, and in reality an exceedingly simple relation, 

 but it is usually not duly considered. 



It must be obvious to every one, that in a field of a 

 certain size, beside the corn-plants which have been sown, a 



