WHAT IS DARWINISM? 2G7 



and flora of our earth to be accounted for? ... To account for 

 the existence of matter and life, Mr. Darwin admits a Creator. 

 This is done explicitly and repeatedly. ... He assumes the ef- 

 ficiency of physical causes, shoicing no disposition to resolve them 

 into mind-force or into the efficiency of the First Cause. . . . lie 

 assumes, also, the existence of life in the form of one or more 

 primordial germs. . . . How all living things on earth, includ- 

 ing the endless variety of plants and all the diversity of animals, 

 . . . have descended from the primordial animalcule, he thinks, 

 may be accounted for by the operation of the following natural 

 laws, viz. : First, the law of Heredity, or that by which like 

 begets like — the offspring are like the parent. Second, the law 

 of Variation ; that is, while the offspring are in all essential 

 characteristics like their immediate progenitor, they neverthe- 

 less vary more or less within narrow limits from their parent 

 and from each other. Some of these variations are indifferent, 

 some deteriorations, some improvements — that is, such as enable 

 the plant or animal to exercise its functions to greater advan- 

 tage. Third, the law of Over-Production. All plants and ani- 

 mals tend to increase in a geometrical ratio, and therefore tend 

 to overrun enormously the means of support. If all the seeds 

 of a plant, all the spawn of a fish, were to arrive at maturity, in 

 a very short time the world could not contain them. Hence, 

 of necessity, arises a struggle for life. Only a few of the myri- 

 ads born can possibly live. Fourth, here comes in the law of 

 Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest ; that is, if any 

 individual of a given species of plant or animal happens to have 

 a slight deviation from the normal type favorable to its success 

 in the struggle for life, it will survive. This variation, by the 

 law of heredity, will be transmitted to its offspring, and by them 

 again to theirs. Soon these favored ones gain the ascendency, 

 and the less favored perish, and the modification becomes estab- 

 lished in the species. After a time, another and another of such 

 favorable variations occur, with like results. Thus, very gradu- 

 ally, great changes of structure are introduced, and not only 

 species, but genera, families, and orders, in the vegetable and 

 animal world, are produced " (pp. 26-29). 



