No. 1.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 13 



"1. Tendency of individuals to increase in number, while yet 

 the actual number remains stationary. 



" 2. A struggle for existence among those which compete for 

 food and endeavour to escape death. 



"3. Survival of the fittest; meaning that those which die are 

 least fitted to maintain their existence. 



''4. Hereditary transmission of a general likeness. 



" 5. Individual diSerences among all. 



•' 6. Change of external conditions universal and unceasing. 



'' 1. Changes of organic forms to keep them in harmony with 

 the changed conditions : and as the changes of condition are per- 

 manent, in the sense of not reverting back to identical previous 

 conditions, the changes of organic forms must be in the same 

 sense permanent, and thus originate species." 



The following passages from the " Origin of Species " may aid 

 the comprehension of what the author admits to be a complex 

 hypothesis : 



" There is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation 

 of profitable deviations of structure and insects" — (p. 412.) 

 '• Natural selection acts solely through the preservation of advan- 

 tageous variation, and it acts with extreme slowness, at long- 

 intervals of time, and only on a few inhabitants of the same 

 region " (p. 108.) ''It is not probable that variability is an in- 

 herent and necessary contingent under all circumstances ; varia- 

 bility is governed by many unknown laws (p. 50). "We are 

 profoundly ignorant of the cause of each slight variation or indi- 

 vidual difference (p. 192). "Nature gives successive variations ; 

 mem adds them up in certain directions useful to him " (p. 40). 



We italicise man because ^we are convinced that the grand 

 fallacy in Darwin's theory lies just here, in the assumption that 

 the selection and propagation of useful variations by Dian is in 

 any way comparable to what takes place in nature. AYhat is 

 proved by all his works is this : that, so far as experience goes, 

 no two created things are identical ; that in many cases naturalists 

 differ in their estimate of the value of the distinctions existiug 

 between individuals, so that what some call varieties others re2;ard 

 as species (a mighty question, which can only be decided by 

 comparing great numbers of individuals of an undoubted species, 

 and especially the progeny of a single pair) ; that by constant 

 attention, by saving such as meet his wants and rejecting the 



