THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION. 



CHARLES DARWIN. 



IT remains to consider very briefly the leading points 

 involved in the theory of 'the Origin of Species by 

 means of Natural Selection/ which the world owes to 

 the genius of Charles Darwin, and by which the entire 

 science of zoology has been fundamentally altered. There 

 is, indeed, no revolution so great as that effected by 

 the introduction of a new principle ; since that involves 

 a reconstruction from the foundation upwards, and implies 

 a much more serious change than the mere putting on 

 of a roof, or the addition of a buttress or of any sort 

 of pendicle, however important such may be in itself. 

 Darwin, however, introduced a novel principle into 

 biology; and in so doing he profoundly altered the 

 entire attitude of naturalists and botanists towards the 

 world of living beings. Moreover, when the organic 

 world came to be viewed in the light of this new 

 principle, it became at once evident that its complexities 

 depended, to a large extent at any rate, upon causes 

 which are open to our investigation, and are not wholly 



