Survival of the Fittest. 44 1 



act on and modify organic beings at any age, by the accu- 

 mulation of variations useful at that age, and by their 

 inheritance at a corresponding age. Thus, if it be profitable 

 to a plant to have its seeds more and more widely dissemi- 

 nated by the wind, there can be no greater difficulty in 

 conceiving this to be effected through Natural Selection than 

 in conceiving the increasing and improving of the down in 

 the pods on his cotton-trees by a wise selection upon the 

 part of a cotton-planter. Natural Selection may modify and 

 adapt the larva of an insect to a score of contingencies, 

 wholly different from those which affect the mature insect, 

 and these modifications through Correlation may work 

 changes in the structure of the adult. On the other hand, 

 modifications of the adult may affect the structure of the 

 larva, but in all such cases Natural Selection will insure that 

 these changes shall not be injurious, for, if they were so, 

 the extinction of the species would be the inevitable result. 

 Thousands of instances might be given to show the influ- 

 ence which Natural Selection, or Sexual Selection, which is 

 only a less vigorous phase of the former, has had all through 

 the ages in the adaptation of life to the places in nature 

 which it was intended to occupy in pursuance of the 

 plan formulated by the Great Originator and Designer of 

 the Universe. 



Despite the imperfection of the geological record, which 

 has been urged as a serious objection to the theory of descent 

 with modification, sensible, intelligent, educated men no lon- 

 ger doubt that species have all changed, and that they have 

 changed in the way required, for they have changed slowly 

 and in a graduated manner. This is clearly seen in the fossil 

 remains from consecutive formations being invariably much 

 more closely allied to each other than are those from widely- 

 separated formations. It is true geological research does 

 not yield those infinitely fine gradations between past and 

 present species which the theory of Natural Selection requires, 

 but when it is remembered that only a small portion of the 



