The Origin of Species 



epoch, we may feel certain thai the ordinary suc- 

 cession 1 >y generation has never oner 1 >een 1 ir< >ken , 

 and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole 

 world. Hence, we may look with some con- 

 fidence to a secure future of great length. And 

 as natural selection works solely by and for the 

 good of each being, all corporeal and mental 

 endowments will tend to progress toward | - in- 

 fection. 



It is interesting to contemplate a tangled 

 bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, 

 with birds singing on the bushes, with various 

 insects flitting about, and with worms crawling 

 through the damp earth, and to reflect that 

 these elaborately constructed forms, so d ; fterent 

 from each other, and dependent upon each 

 other in so complex a manner, have all been 

 produced by laws acting around us. These 

 laws taken in the largest sense, being growth 

 with reproduction; Inheritance which is almost 

 implied by reproduction; Variability from the 

 indirect and direct action of the conditions of 

 life, and from use and disuse: a Ratio of In- 

 crease so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, 

 and as a consequence to Natural Selection, 

 entailing divergence of Character and the 

 Extinction of less improved forms. Tint-', from 

 the war of nature, from, famine and death, the 

 most exalted object which we are capabl 

 conceiving, namely, the production of the higher 

 animals, directly follows. There is grandeur 

 in this view of life, with its several powers, 

 33 



