io THE KINGDOM OF MAN 



6. NATURE'S MODE OF PRODUCING ORGANIC 



FORMS. 



The general process by which the higher and more 

 elaborate forms of life, and eventually man himself, have 

 been produced has been shown by Darwin to depend 

 upon two important properties of living matter mani- 

 fested in connexion with the multiplication of individuals. 

 Living matter has a special property of adding to its 

 bulk by taking up the chemical elements which it re- 

 quires and building up the food so taken as additional 

 living matter. It further has the power of separating 

 from itself minute particles or germs which feed and 

 grow independently, and thus multiply their kind. It is 

 a fundamental character of this process of reproduction 

 that the detached or pullulated germ inherits or carries 

 with it from its parents the peculiarities of form and 

 structure of its parent. This is the property known as 

 Heredity. It is most essentially modified by another 

 property namely, that though eventually growing to be 

 closely like the parent, the germ (especially when it is 

 formed, as is usual, by the fusion of two germs from 

 two separate parents) is never identical in all respects 

 with the parent. It shows Variation. In virtue of 

 Heredity, the new congenital variations shown by a new 

 generation are transmitted to their offspring when in 

 due time they pullulate or produce germs. Man has 

 long been aware of this ; and, by selecting variations 

 of beasts, birds, or plants agreeable or useful to him, 

 has intensified such variations and produced animals and 

 plants in many features very unlike those with which he 

 started. 



It was Darwin's merit to show that a process of selec- 

 tion which he called * Natural Selection ' must take place 



