Danvinism Verified. 13 



save those instructed naturalists who have fre- 

 quent occasion to ponder the subject, are aware 

 what a tremendous reality natural selection is. 

 As I have elsewhere observed, " a single codfish 

 has been known to lay six million eggs within a 

 year. If these eggs were all to become adult cod- 

 fishes, and the multiplication were to continue at 

 this rate for three or four years, the ocean would 

 not afford room for the species. Yet we have no 

 reason to suppose that the race of codfishes is ac- 

 tually increasing in numbers to any notable ex- 

 tent. With the codfish, as with animal species in 

 general, the numbers during many successive gen- 

 erations oscillate about a point which is fixed, or 

 moves but slowly forward or backward. Instead 

 of a geometrical increase with a ratio of six mill- 

 ions, there is practically no marked increase at all. 

 Now this implies that out of the six million em- 

 bryo codfish a sufficient number will survive to 

 replace their two parents, and to replace a certain 

 small proportion of those contemporary codfishes 

 who leave no progeny. Perhaps a dozen may 

 suffice for this, perhaps a hundred. The rest of 

 the six million must die." l The amount of de- 

 struction is not so great as this in all parts of the 

 animal kingdom. Among the higher birds and 



l Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 12. 



