94 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



one the elements of which can be but imperfectly 

 known, and of which even an approximately right 

 solution rarely presents itself, until that stern critic, 

 aged experience, has been furnished with ample 

 justification for venting his sarcastic humour upon 

 the irreparable blunders we have already made. 



That which endures is not one or another associa- 

 tion of living forms, but the process of which the 

 cosmos is the product, and of which these are among 

 the transitory expressions. And in the living world, 

 one of the most characteristic features of this cosmic 

 process is the struggle for existence, the competition 

 of each with all, the result of which is the selection, 

 that is to say, the survival of those forms which, on 

 the whole, are best adapted to the conditions which 

 at any period obtain ; and which are therefore, in 

 that respect, and only in that respect, the fittest. 

 The acme reached by the cosmic process in the 

 vegetation of the downs is seen in the turf, with its 

 weed and gorse. Under the conditions, they have 

 come out of the struggle victorious ; and, by surviv- 

 ing, have proved that they are the fittest to survive. 



As a natural process, of the same character as the 

 development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from 

 its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other 

 kinds of supernatural intervention. As the expres- 

 sion of a fixed order, every stage of which is the 

 effect of causes operating according to definite rules, 

 the conception of evolution no less excludes that of 

 chance. It is very desirable to remember that evolu- 

 tion is not an explanation of the cosmic process, but 



