IO4 CHARLES DARWIN 



paratively unimportant. What we have actually given 

 to us in the concrete universe is, organisms varying 

 perpetually in minute points, and a rapid rate of in- 

 crease causing every minute point of advantage to be 

 exceptionally favoured in the struggle for existence. 



But Darwin is remarkable among all broachers of 

 new theories for the extraordinary candour and open- 

 ness of his method. He acknowledged beforehand all 

 the difficulties in the way of his theory, and though he 

 himself confessed that some of them were serious (a 

 statement which subsequent research has often rendered 

 unnecessary), he met many of them with cogent argu- 

 ments by anticipation, and demolished objections before 

 they could even be raised against him by hostile critics. 

 Of these objections, only two need here be mentioned. 

 The first is the question, why is not all nature even now 

 a confused mass of transitional forms ? Why do genera 

 and species exist as we see them at present in broad 

 distinction one from the other? To this Darwin 

 answers rightly that, where the process of species- 

 making is still going on, we do actually find fine grada- 

 tions and transitional forms existing between genera, 

 varieties, and species. 1 But, furthermore, as natural 

 selection acts solely by the preservation of useful modi- 

 fications, each better-adapted new form will always tend 

 in a fully stocked country to oust and exterminate its 

 own unimproved parent type, as well as all other 

 competing but less perfect varieties. Thus natural 

 selection and extinction of intermediates go for ever 



1 The researches of Seebohm and others have since proved that 

 this is really the case to a far greater extent than Darwin was aware 

 of in 1859, or, indeed, till many years afterward. 



