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way superior to others of its kind, that plant or animal will in all 

 probability survive its fellows and transmit those qualities to some of 

 its descendants, and thus such qualities will be preserved, but whilst 

 this law of inherited qualities is true as a general statement, it is 

 qualified by the fact that the descendants of a plant or an animal are 

 never exactly like their parents — the son although often very like his 

 father, is never so much so as to be mistaken for him, and this is so in 

 all living things, — there is a constant variation in character and qualities 

 in what seam to us to be subordinate things. Some of these variations 

 are beneficial to the plant or animal, others are hurtful. Of course the 

 hurtful ones tend to the destruction of those possessing them, whilst the 

 beneficial ones give their possessors superior advantages in the struggle 

 for existence, and so by virtue of these two causes — the inheritance of 

 good qualities with a variation in favour of the individual — the 

 individual fortunate enough to possess them must of necessity over- 

 match all others of its kind, and if any of its kind survive, it will be 

 among the number — there will be, as the evolutionists say, a survival of 

 the fittest. 



These I take it are the main foundations of evolution. There are, 

 of course, a large number of subsidiary doctrines, and the system as 

 a system is growing almost every day ; but I think I have stated 

 enough for the purpose I have in hand. Now this theory of evolution 

 seems to be finding favour in the minds of our leading scientific men. 

 I find Professor Wyville Thompson writing thus in his Depths of the 

 Sea : — " I do not think that I am speaking too strongly when I say 

 that there is now scarcely a single competent general naturalist who is 

 not prepared to accept some form of the doctrine of Evolution." 

 Again, Professor W. Stanley Jevons, in his Principles of Science, 

 says : — " The theories of Darwin and Spencer are doubtless not 

 demonstrated ; they are to some extent hypothetical, just as all 

 theories of physical science are to some extent hypothetical and open 

 to doubt. But I venture to look upon the theories of evolution and 

 natural selection in their main features as two of the most probable 

 hypotheses ever proposed, harmonizing and explaining as they do 

 immense numbers of diverse facts. I question whether any scientific 

 works, since the ' Principia ' of Newton, are comparable in importance 

 with those of Darwin and Spencer, revolutionizing as they do all our 

 views of the origin of bodily, mental, moral, and social phenomena." 



Seeing, then, from the testimony of these two competent witnesses 



