CONCLUSION. 363 



opinion might be early and easily divided — a point in 

 respect of which two courses involving different lines 

 of action presented equally-balanced advantages — and 

 there would be an early subdivision of primordial life, 

 according as the one view or the other was taken. 



It is obvious that the pros and cons for either 

 course must be supposed very nearly equal, otherwise 

 the course which presented the fewest advantages 

 would be attended with the probable gradual extinc- 

 tion of the organised beings that adopted it, but there 

 being supposed two possible modes of action very 

 evenly balanced as regards advantage and disadvan- 

 tages, then the ultimate appearance of two corre- 

 sponding forms of life is a sequitur from the admission 

 that form varies as function, and function as opinion 

 concerning advantage. If there are three, four, five, 

 or six such opinions tenable, we ought to have three, 

 four, five, or six main subdivisions of life. As things 

 are, we have two only. Can we, then, see a matter 

 on which opinion was likely to be easily and early 

 divided into two, and only two, main divisions — no 

 third course being conceivable ? If so, this should 

 suggest itself as the probable source from which the 

 two main forms of organic life have been derived. 



I submit that we can see such a matter in the ques- 

 tion whether it pays better to sit still and make the best 

 of what comes in one's way, or to go about in search 

 of what one can find. Of course we, as animals, 

 naturally hold that it is better to go about in search 

 of what we can find than to sit still and make the 

 best of what comes ; but there is still so much to be 



