270 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
perfecting. When the phenomena due to these two Jaws 
first became known, through observation of the historical de- 
velopment, the individual development, and the comparative 
anatomy of animals and plants, naturalists were inclined to 
trace them to a direct creative influence. It was supposed to 
be part of the plan of the Creator, acting for a definite purpose, 
in the course of time to develop the forms of animals and 
plants more and more variously, and to bring them more and 
more to a state of perfection. We shall evidently make a great 
advance in the knowledge of nature if we reject thisteleological 
and anthropomorphic conception, and if we can prove the two 
laws of Division of Labour and Perfecting to be the necessary 
consequences of natural selection in the struggle for life. 
The first great law which follows directly and of necessity 
from natural selection, is that of separation, or differentia- 
tion, which is frequently called division of labour, or poly- 
morphism, and which Darwin speaks of as divergence of 
character. (Gen. Morph. ii. 249). We understand by it the 
general tendency of all organic individuals to develop them- 
selves more and more diversely, and to deviate from the 
common primary type. The cause of this general inclination 
towards differentiation and the formation of heterogeneous 
forms from homogeneous beginnings is, according to Darwin, 
simply to be traced to the circumstance that the struggle for 
life between every two organisms rages all the more fiercely 
the nearer the relation in which they stand to one another, 
or the more nearly alike they are. This is an exceedingly 
important, and in reality an exceedingly simple relation, 
but it is usually not duly considered. 
It must be obvious to every one, that in a field of a 
certain size, besides the corn-plants which have been sown, a 
