THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE, 575 



amount of- evidence into an elaborate demonstration, 

 that this " preservation of favoured races in the struggle 

 for life " is an ever-acting cause of divergence amongst 

 organic forms. He has traced out the involved results 

 of the process with marvellous subtlety. He has shown 

 how hosts of otherwise inexplicable facts are fully 

 accounted for by it. In brief, he has proved that the 

 cause he alleges is a true cause.' 



But the general process, which is universal in its 

 operation, must be distinguished from the more special 

 process, which is less extensive in its range of appli- 

 cation. And accordingly Mr. Spencer, whilst clearly re- 

 cognizing the immense importance of Natural Selection 

 (or ^ survival of the fittest/ as he aptly renders it) as a 

 cause of specific transmutation, nevertheless recognizes 

 it as only one of the causes which in the course of 

 time sufifices to produce new species out of pre-existing 

 species. Thus any altered form or structure directly 

 brought about by a change in the external conditions to 

 which certain organisms are exposed may be trans- 

 mitted and perpetuated through the same principle of 

 inheritance; and so also may functionally-produced 

 changes in organisms be perpetuated in a similar 

 manner. The two latter processes come under the 

 head of what Mr. Spencer terms ^direct equtUhratlon^ 

 whilst Natural Selection, so far as it is a 'producer' 

 of change, acts by a process of ' Indirect equllihration.' 



Mr. Darwin, on the contrary, appears not to recognize 

 the distinctions above indicated, since he professes to 



