232 DARWINIANISM. 



stones into a house, so the breeder forms variations into 

 a race. In both illustrations, the role of selection, as the 

 role of variation, is accurately prescinded. 



But what now of the adaptation ? Why, that, too, is 

 easy that, too, is on the surface. The favourableness of 

 the variation in the struggle for existence and the diver- 

 gence into place simply are the adaptation. As an 

 organism varies ever the more and the more favourably, 

 and diverges ever the more and the more in character 

 and place ; so, plainly, ever the more and the more must 

 it depart from what it was at first, to stand up, sooner 

 or later, consequently, with new adaptations, a new 

 species. In this way new species and new adaptations 

 are seen to be but products of natural growth, and not 

 by any means results of supernatural interference. Just 

 consider, for example, how such a conspicuous case of 

 adaptation may have gradually arisen naturally as 

 the woodpecker (again and again referred to, this is Mr. 

 Darwin's favourite example of adaptation). 



Of two birds that feed on insects, conceive the one 

 of them to have varied favourably in the beak to be 

 possessed, that is, of the stronger beak : it will have the 

 advantage over the other, and it will transmit this 

 advantage to its descendants. In these this advantage 

 'an only grow ; for they will always possess, and, as is 

 evident, always increasingly possess, the strongest beaks. 

 That strength of beak will give the advantage is but a 

 corollary on the habits of the birds themselves. They 

 haunt fallen trees, namely, under the bark of which the 

 insects burrow to fall a prey preferably to the strongest 

 beak that can dig for them. Still even the strongest 

 beak does not always succeed ; its tongue, conceivably, 

 is too short, and the insects occasionally escape it. Let 

 a strong-beaked bird be born now with a longer tongue 

 than the rest, why, it, too, will have the advantage over 



