Permanence and Evolution. 123 



climate ; early maturity to minimise the waste 

 of energy produced by the mother having to 

 cater for and protect her helpless young. 



Now, it cannot be maintained that in these 

 points the higher animals exhibit any superiority 

 over the lower. In fertility they are immeasur- 

 ably inferior; in hardiness, probably, on the 

 whole inferior ; enormously inferior in earliness 

 of maturity. Now, hardiness and fertility and 

 (though in a very much less degree) early matu- 

 rity, are points in which closely allied forms 

 differ much, e.g., the hare and rabbit, or different 

 families of the same domestic breed of any 

 animal.* Therefore, on evolutionist principles, 

 it would have been, so to say, an easy task for 

 nature, and one which would have taken a com- 

 paratively short time (the importance of this last 

 point will appear later on) to have brought all 



* These characters are also of such a nature that they would 

 remain beneficial to the creature under any conceivable change 

 of conditions, and so not be liable to the difficulty urged at 

 pp. 135, 136. 



