Art and Science 



The early evolutionists maintained that all 

 existing forms of animal and vegetable life, 

 including man, were derived in course of de- 

 scent with modification from forms resembling 

 the lowest now known. 



Mr. Darwin went as far as this, and farther 

 no one can go. The point at issue between 

 him and his predecessors involves neither the 

 main fact of evolution, nor yet the geometrical 

 ratio of increase, and the struggle for exist- 

 ence consequent thereon. Messrs. Darwin and 

 Wallace have each thrown invaluable light 

 upon these last two points, but Buffon, as early 

 as 1756, had made them the keystone of his 

 system. " The movement of nature," he then 

 wrote, " turns on two immovable pivots : one, 

 the illimitable fecundity which she has given 

 to all species: the other, the innumerable 

 difficulties which reduce the results of that 

 fecundity." Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck 

 followed in the same sense. They thus admit 

 the survival of the fittest as fully as Mr. 

 Darwin himself, though they do not make 

 use of this particular expression. The dispute 

 turns not upon natural selection, which is 



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