Evolutionism and Darwinism. 67 



ancestral animal a fish-like creature, which 

 united both sexes in itself, and in which the lungs 

 existed as a float and the heart as a simple pul 

 sating vessel. No paradise was the birthplace of 

 this first parent, but the shore of a restless sea, 

 whose changes by day and b,y month begot in 

 him that periodicity of function which, like an &amp;lt; 

 echo over eternities, to this cKy survives in his 

 latest human descendant. 



This, then, is Darwin s new hypothesis in nat 

 ural history. I have had to limit myself to the 

 merest outline. But I must adsl, before pass 

 ing on, that Darwin develops his theory with a 

 fecundity of intellectual resources a wealth of 

 observations and experiments, a skill in the group 

 ing of evidence, and, more than all, *vith an ex 

 treme of caution in speculation and an extreme of 

 candor in weighing the arguments of opponents, 

 which no one can fail to recognize ail marvellous 

 in itself and even honorable to our common hu 

 manity. Hasty, however, as our sketch has been, 

 it will now, I think, be clear what the essential 

 moment of the Darwinian theory really is? Were 

 we asked to define it, we should say, Darvinism is 

 the application of the law of natural selecVon 

 i.e., struggle for life and survival of the fittcot 

 to account for the development of life and the 



