INTERNAL FACTORS. 429 



kind of plant or animal, it follows that since the intruders 

 will probably not spread throughout its whole habitat, the 

 epecies wiU, in one or more localities, remain unaffected by 

 them. Especially among marine creatures, must there fre- 

 quently occur cases in which modifying causes are con- 

 tinually eluded. Much more uniform as are the phj^sical 

 conditions to which the sea exposes its inhabitants, it becomes 

 possible for such of them as live on widely-diffused food, to 

 be widely distributed; and wide distribution generally pre- 

 vents the members of a species from being all subject to the 

 same cause. Our commonest cirrhiped, for instance, subsisting 

 on minute creatures that are everywhere dispersed through 

 the sea ; needing only to have some firm surface on which 

 to build up its shell ; and in scarcely any danger from sur- 

 roimding animals; is able to exist on shores so ^^idely remote 

 from one another, that nearly every change in the actions of 

 incident forces, must fall withia narrower are'as than that 

 which the species occupies. In nearly every case, therefore, 

 a portion of the species will survive unmodified. Its easily- 

 transported germs will take possession of such new habitats 

 as have been rendered fitter by the change that has unfitted 

 some parts of its original habitat. Hence, on successive 

 occasions, while some parts of the species are slightly trans- 

 formed, another part may continually escape transformation 

 by migrating hither and thither, where the simple condi- 

 tions needed for its existence recur in nearly the same com- 

 binations as before. And it wiU. so become possible for it 

 to survive, with comparatively trifling structural changes, 

 throughout long geologic periods. 



^ 158. The results to which we find ourselves led, are 

 thes3. 



In subordination to the different amounts and kinds of 

 forces to which its different parts are exposed, every in- 

 dividual organic aggregate, like all other aggregates, tends 

 lo pass from its original indistinct simplicity towards a more 



