98 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



continuity is one of personal identity. In organic 

 evolution the continuity is racial, not individual ; 

 but, as in development, there is progress in the wide 

 sense. It may be up or down, for the better or for 

 the worse, measured by certain standards, but 

 progress of some sort is implied in the concept of 

 evolution, and it is with the raw materials of 

 progress that we are now concerned. The interest 

 of this inquiry is enhanced by the fact that, through- 

 out the ages, life has been on the whole slowly 

 on the upgrade, and that among animals there has 

 been a gradual emergence of greater control and 

 more freedom, of a fuller life and higher intelligence. 

 DARWIN'S POSITION. Darwin started from the 

 admitted fact of life that offspring are often 

 innately different from one another and from 

 their parents. Through his study of species 

 which began in his boyish beetle-collecting and 

 went on to his eight years' work on barnacles 

 he had become aware of the fountain of change 

 in living creatures, and he strengthened his 

 impression by patiently accumulating facts in 

 regard to the variability of domesticated animals 

 and cultivated plants. In his original 1858 essay, 

 and in the " Origin of Species " (1859), he recog- 

 nised two kinds of hereditary variations : (1) large 

 " single variations," or " sports," which occur 

 rarely and result in individuals conspicuously 

 different from the type of the species ; and (2), 

 slight " individual variations," which are of 

 frequent occurrence, distinguishing child from 

 parent, brother from sister, or cousin from cousin. 

 He was much interested in the large single varia- 

 tions, such as occurred in the origin of copper-beech 

 and weeping willow, but true to the influence 



