26 DARWINISM. 



But the principle of natural selection offers a solution 

 to every one of these enigmas. It embraces all the 

 various phases of life of the ancient world as well as the 

 modern, and gives a key to the whole grand uninter- 

 rupted plan. It carries back the mind to a period when 

 the earth was destitute of life ; when yet, as it were, the 

 thought in the Divine mind was still unspoken, that of 

 one, and that as good as dead, should spring seed like 

 the sand which is upon the sea-shore for multitude. 

 Then it came to pass that the dust of the earth was 

 called into life by the Life- Giver, and received the 

 strange command and the mysterious power to multiply, 

 and to replenish the earth. As soon as living creatures 

 multiplied to any great extent, they would spread them- 

 selves into different lands and seas and climates; they 

 would find different sources of nourishment, and then 

 variation would come into play, and close upon variation 

 would follow selection, not of necessity destroying the 

 old forms, but establishing new ones, because in some 

 stations the form that had not varied might thrive best, 

 in others the variety would have an advantage 1 . As 

 time went on, through the constant changes that the 

 surface of the globe is undergoing, one variety would be 

 isolated from another, and in such an isolation the 

 differences would increase. And the more a species 



too near together for the spheres to be complete, flat walls of wax being 

 built where they tend to intersect. 



A little extra regularity, advantageous for the saving of wax and 

 labour, would produce the symmetrical comb of the hive-bee with its 

 two layers of hexagonal prisms. 



1 See 'Principles of Biology,' vol. i. pp. 428-431. 



