AMERICAN 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS. 
[SECOND SERI8#8.] 
Art. IL—On the Origin of ‘Spetien 2% y THEOPHILUS PARSONS, 
Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University, Cambridge, 
a penitins tts. 
as 
onist of received opinions, and became at once the sub- 
ject of earnest hostility as well as unqualified yeh ae 
*much discussion been importantly qualifie modified, 
and thus reconciled with views which it seemed rr contradict : 
and when thus A of its excess and moderated in its demands, 
_ has been generally adopted as an important addition to knowl- 
edge. “Tt may yet be so with Mr. Darwin's views. 
s theory, stated very briefly, is, that all organisms tend to 
reproduce t hemselves in’a geometrical ratio, and with such ex- 
uberance of life, that each one would specily fill the earth, if 
not repressed by constant and powerful causes of destruction, 
Hence but a very small proportion of seeds or ova which ar 
impregnated are able to mature and reproduce. Therefore there 
_ must be a competition, or as he e phrases it, a “struggle for life,” 
among all these im regnated germs of ‘life; and if one in 
handeed only lives there must be a reason why that one lives 
rather than iki ninety and nine which perish. This reason must 
again be frequently, or at least sometimes, that it had some ad- 
vantage in this “struggle for life,” ‘eh a structural or functional 
difference. That is, it varied from its kindred, in such wise, 
that it was somewhat easier for it ie; live, to grow, to mature, 
and to reproduce, than for them. This difference or variation 
it must, as a general rule, impart to its offspring. When it be- 
_ BECOND soll) Vou. XXX, No. 88.—JULY, 1860. 
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