62 Divergence of Character. CHAP. 



whole, will inherit their superiorities ; and this 

 process will go on, accumulating through successive 

 generations. 



Thus the high rate of natural increase causes a 

 struggle for life ; variation produces favoured races, 

 and the automatic action of natural selection, giving 

 the race to the swift and the battle to the strong, 

 ensures the " survival of the fittest " by preserving 

 the favoured races, which are the best worth preserv- 

 ing, while destroying the rest. 



It has been said that this does not explain the 

 origin of species at all, but only their preserva- 

 tion after they have been originated. I agree, on 

 the whole, with this criticism. 1 



It remains, ' however, true that natural selection 

 among spontaneous variations must tend to improve- 

 ment ; and it is also true that it must tend to what 

 Darwin calls Divergence of Character ; the improve- 

 ment is effected on divergent lines. This necessarily 

 occurs as a result of the struggle for life in a world 

 where different ways of life are open, and where 

 individuals and races may be benefited in different 

 ways by different kinds of superiority. To mention an 

 obvious instance ; if, among a species of wild dogs, 



1 A great part of my work on Habit and Intelligence is oc- 

 cupied with an attempt, which cannot be here stated in even 

 the slightest summary, to prove that organic Evolution cannot 

 be accounted for by any Darwinian process of fortuitous varia- 

 tion and automatic natural selection ; and that the theory of 

 organic Evolution not only admits of, but demands, a Guiding 

 Intelligence. 



