ORIGIN OF SPECIES' 83 



the extreme fecundity of nature, who, as before stated, 

 has in all the varieties of her offspring a prolific power 

 much beyond (in many cases a thousandfold) what is 

 necessary to fill up the vacancies caused by senile decay. 

 As the field of existence is limited and preoccupied, it 

 is only the hardier, more robust, better-suited-to-cir- 

 cumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward 

 to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to 

 which they have superior adaptation and greater power 

 of occupancy than any other kind ; the weaker and 

 less circumstance-suited being prematurely destroyed. 

 This principle is in constant action; it regulates the 

 colour, the figure, the capacities, and instincts ; those 

 individuals in each species whose colour and covering 

 are best suited to concealment or protection from 

 enemies, or defence from inclemencies and vicissitudes 

 of climate, whose figure is best accommodated to health, 

 strength, defence, and support; whose capacities and 

 instincts can best regulate the physical energies to self- 

 advantage according to circumstances in such im- 

 mense waste of primary and youthful life those only 

 come forward to maturity from the strict ordeal by 

 which nature tests their adaptation to her standard of 

 perfection and fitness to continue their kind by repro- 

 duction.' Of the ideas expressed in these paragraphs, 

 arid others which preceded them, Darwin himself rightly 

 observes, ' He gives precisely the same view on the 

 origin of species as that propounded by Mr. Wallace 

 and myself. He clearly saw the full force of the prin- 

 ciple of natural selection.' 



In 1852, once more, so eminent and confirmed an 

 evolutionist as Mr. Herbert Spencer himself had hit 



