Charles Robert Darwin. 35 



each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic 

 conditions of life." In the struggle for existence, always 

 going on, it is evident that individuals having the least ad- 

 vantage over others will have the best chance of surviving 

 and of reproducing their kind. In all living forms there is 

 a certain tendency to variation. Natural selection is a 

 principle which preserves the variations which are favor- 

 able to the life of any individual or race. By accumulating 

 favorable variations in one variety or species it makes the 

 chances of a competing variety for success or even for sur- 

 vival less and less. Hence the extinction of certain races. 

 But natural selection also leads to divergence of character ; 

 for the more the living beings that can be supported on the 

 same area, the more they diverge in structure, habits, and 

 constitution. The more diversified the descendants of any 

 species become, the more likely will they be to succeed in 

 the struggle for existence. "Thus the small differences 

 distinguishing varieties of the same species will steadily 

 tend to increase till they come to equal the greater differ- 

 ences between species of the same genus, or even of dis- 

 tinct genera." 



The facts to be accounted for are innumerable adapta- 

 tions of organisms to their environment. The traditional 

 method for accounting for them is that of special creations. 

 Now, if it could be shown that all the different species 

 were suddenly adapted to their environment, we should 

 have ample proof of special creation. But if it can be 

 shown that nowhere is there sudden adaptation, and that 

 one set of adaptations can be gradually transformed into 

 another, then we have ample proof of organic evolution and 

 of natural selection as a method of this process. For no 

 one will be likely to deny that if there is organic evolution 

 by which species are transmuted, natural selection is its 

 principal though not its only instrument. What, then, are 

 the evidences of organic evolution ? 



First, they are such as are furnished us by the scientific 

 classification of the animal and vegetable world. This 

 classification is not something arranged by Darwin and his 

 confederates. If it were so, we might suspect it of some 

 bias from their prepossessions. But Darwin found it wait- 

 ing for his hour, ready to cry Amen to his ideal. He 

 found his principal antagonists working away at it and 



