Darwinism Verified. 13 



save those instructed naturalists who have fre- 

 quent occasion to ponder the subject, are aware 

 what a tremendous reality natural selection is. 

 As I have elsewhere observed, " a single codfish 

 has been known to lay six million eggs within a 

 year. If these eggs were all to become adult cod- 

 fishes, and the multiplication were to continue at 

 this rate for three or four years, t-Le ocean would 

 not afford room for the species. Yet we have no 

 reason to suppose that the race of codfishes is ac- 

 tually increasing in numbers to any notable ex- 

 tent. With the codfish, as with animal species in 

 general, the numbers during many successive gen- 

 erations oscillate about a point which is fixed, or 

 moves but slowly forward or backward. Instead 

 of a geometrical increase with a ratio of cix mill- 

 ions, there is practically no marked increase at all. 

 Now this implies that out of the six million em- 

 bryo codfish a sufficient number will survive to 

 replace their two parents, and to replace a certain 

 small proportion of those contemporary codfishes 

 who leave no progeny. Perhaps a dozen may 

 suffice for this, perhaps a hundred. The rest of 

 the six million must die." l The amount of de- 

 struction is not so great as this in all parts of the 

 animal kingdom. Among the higher birds and 



l Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 12. 



