EAMARCKAYS THEORY OF EVOL LION 2o7 
by their enormous numbers, the more highly organ- 
ized and perfect animals which compose the first 
classes and the first orders of this kingdom, so great 
is the difference in the means and facility of multi- 
plying between the two. 
“But nature has anticipated the dangerous effects 
of this vast power of reproduction and multiplication. 
She has prevented it on the one hand by consider- 
ably limiting the duration of life of these beings so 
simply organized which compose the lower classes, 
and especially the lowest orders of the animal king- 
dom. On the other hand, both by making these 
animals the prey of each other, thus incessantly re- 
ducing their numbers, and also by determining 
through the diversity of climates the localities where 
they could exist,and by the variety of seasons—z.e., 
by the influences of different atmospheric conditions 
—the time during which they could maintain their 
Existence. 
“By means of these wise precautions of nature 
everything i is well balanced and in order. Individuals 
multiply, propagate, and die in different ways. No 
species predominates up to the point of effecting the 
extinction of another, except, perhaps, in the highest 
classes, where the multiplication of the individuals is 
slow and difficult ; and as the result of this state of 
things we conceive that in general species are pre- 
Senved: (p22 
Here we have in anticipation the doctrine of Mal- 
thus, which, as will be remembered, so much im- 
pressed Charles Darwin, and led him in part to work 
out his principle of natural selection. 
The author then taking up other subjects, first 
asserts that among the changes that animals and 
plants unceasingly bring about by their production 
and débris, it is not the largest and most perfect ani- 
