Cir.u-. XIV. CONCLUSION. 437 



largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction ; Inheritance 

 which is ahnost inipUed by reproduction ; Variahility from the 

 inchrcct and direct action of the conditions of Ufe, and from 

 use and disuse ; a Katio of Increase so high as to lead to a 

 Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, 

 entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less- 

 improved forms. Thus, from the war of Nature, from famine 

 and death, the most exalted object Avhich we are capable of 

 conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, di- 

 rectly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its 

 several powers, having been originally breathed by the Crea- 

 tor into a few forms or into one ; and that, while this planet 

 has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from 

 so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most 

 wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. 



