Hitman Physiology. 709- 



We find in the slow formed rocky strata of the earth, deposited 

 under water, the fossil remains of the earliest plants and 

 animals. Life on the earth had then its beginnings. If we 

 say it came from another planet, we have the same process 

 to go through there, and so on. 



It is believed by some that each species of plants and 

 animals has been created upon the earth when it had come into 

 the conditions necessary for its continuance each having the 

 power of producing the germs of future individuals of the same 

 species. 



It is held by others that all the species which exist and have 

 existed upon the earth were developed gradually from the 

 simplest forms of organised matter. 



Mr. Darwin contends that this has been done by a process 

 of natural selection aided by what he calls sexual selection. 

 Beginning with the lowest forms of life, which were created 

 with a liability to slight variations in form, and also with the 

 power of transmitting those variations to the germs of future 

 beings, some variations would be more favourable than others 

 to the existence of the vegetable or animal. By the survival of 

 the fittest, these changes would be perpetuated, and in this 

 way, from one or a few germs, or very simple forms of living 

 matter, we have all the varieties of vegetables and animals on 

 our planet, with man to crown the visible creation. Sexual 

 selection comes in aid of natural selection, or is a development 

 of it, in the choice of mates for strength, or beauty, or some 

 attractive peculiarity. But all varieties of character, instinct, 

 intellect, and moral qualities, must, upon this hypothesis, be 

 the result of chance variations, and the survival of the fittest. 

 I have already alluded to this hypothesis in the first part of this 

 work, and shall have occasion to speak of it hereafter. 



The vegetable kingdom is the basis of the animal kingdom. 

 On earth and sea all animals live primarily or secondarily upon 

 plants, as plants live upon the elements of matter, carbon. 



