266 LIFE AND HABIT. 



portant for the development of species than the fact 

 of the continuation of life at all ; but it is an accessory 

 of much the same kind as this, for if animals continue 

 to live at all, they must live in some way, and will find 

 that there are good ways and bad ways of living. An 

 animal which discovers the good way will gradually 

 develop further powers, and so species will get further 

 and further apart ; but the origin of this is to be looked 

 for, not in the power which decides whether this or that 

 way was good, but in the cause which determines the 

 creature, consciously or unconsciously, to try this or 

 that way. 



But Mr. Darwin might say that this is not a fair 

 way of stating the issue. He might say, " You beg the 

 question; you assume that there is an inherent ten- 

 dency in animals towards progressive development, 

 whereas I say that there is no good evidence of any 

 such tendency. I maintain that the differences that 

 have from time to time arisen have come about mainly 

 from causes so far beyond our ken, that we can only 

 call them spontaneous ; and if so, natural selection which 

 you must allow to have at any rate played an important 

 part in the accumulation of variations, must also be 

 allowed to be the nearest thing to the cause of Specific 

 differences, which we are- able to arrive at." 



Thus he writes ("Natural Selection," p. 176, ed. 

 1 876) : " Although we have no good evidence of the 

 existence in organic beings of a tendency towards pro- 

 gressive development, yet this necessarily follows, as I 

 have attempted to show in the fourth chapter, through 

 the continued action of natural selection." Mr. Darwin 



