NATURAL SELECTION 



spring produced by each plant and animal, save 

 in the case of those highest in the scale, but 

 few attain maturity and leave offspring behind 

 them. The most perish for want of sustenance, 

 or are slain to furnish food for other organisms. 

 There is thus an unceasing struggle for life — 

 a competition for the means of subsistence — 

 going on among all plants and animals. In 

 this struggle by far the greater number suc- 

 cumb without leaving offspring — but a few 

 favoured ones in each generation survive and 

 propagate to their offspring the qualities by 

 virtue of which they have survived. 



Thus we see what is meant by " Natural 

 Selection." The organisms which survive and 

 propagate their kind are those which are best 

 adapted to the conditions in which they live ; so 

 that we may, by a legitimate use of metaphor, 

 personify Nature as a mighty breeder, selecting 

 from each generation those individuals which 

 are fleetest, strongest, most sagacious : lions with 

 supplest muscles, moths with longest antennae, 

 mollusks with hardest shells, wolves with keen- 

 est scent, bees with surest instinct, flowers with 

 sweetest nectar ; until, in the course of untold 

 ages, the numberless varieties of organic life 

 have been produced by the same process of 

 which man now takes advantage in order to 

 produce variations to suit his own caprices. 



Between natural selection and selection by 



VOL. in 17 



