IN MEMORIAM: CHARLES DARWIN 



of the moon to the tangential force of a stone 

 whirled at the end of a string. The case is sim- 

 ple enough, when creative genius has once ex- 

 plained it. So great is the destruction of organic 

 life that out of hundreds of seeds, or spawn, or 

 ova, but one or two ever live to come to ma- 

 turity and reproduce themselves in offspring. 

 Such is the result of the universal and unrelent- 

 jig competition between organisms for the means 

 of subsistence. Any creature that lives to re- 

 produce its kind is selected from out of a thou- 

 sand that perish prematurely, and its selection 

 is evidence of its better adaptation to the con- 

 ditions amid which it is placed. And so stern 

 and so ubiquitous is the competition that there 

 is no individual variation, however slight or ap- 

 parently trivial, that is not liable to be seized 

 upon and enhanced if it tend in any way to 

 promote the survival of the species. Thus it is 

 natural selection that at every moment preserves 

 the stability of a species, and keeps it in har- 

 mony with its environment, by cutting off all 

 individual variations that oscillate too far on 

 either side of a prescribed mean. The stability 

 of a species depends, therefore, upon the stabil- 

 ity of the environment ; and the only condition 

 under which a species could remain unchanged 

 would be, that it should remain forever exposed 

 to the action of changeless groups of circum- 

 stances. But this has never been the case with 



