THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 



89 



beauty,* and bave not been developed by variation, but Darwin 

 says witb force that the idea of beauty obviously depends on the 

 mind of man ; thus neither the Negro nor the Chinese admires 

 the Caucasian beau ideal of a woman. Were the volute and 

 cone shells, he asks, of the Eocene created to be admired in 

 man's cabinet ? He further explains that the beauty of many 

 flowers is a provision for attracting insects in order to scatter 

 the pollen, and the attractive delicacy of some fruits, such as the 

 cherry and strawberry, is a lure for birds to swallow them and 

 so spread abroad their seeds. 



One of Darwin's reviewers, said to be Prof. Owen, in com- 

 menting on the statement that it is in the largest genera that 

 the widest limits to the species and the most extensive variation 

 are found, brings forward the counter-statement that the Ele- 

 phant is a small genus, comprising only two species, yet the 

 range of both Indian and African examples is considerable. The 

 Borneo Pongo (or Orang) consists likewise of but one species, 

 which varies mu^h. On the other hand, the species of the 

 Antelope " genus" have not hitherto presented noteworthy 

 variations; yet the " genus " in respect to number of species is 

 one of the largest in the mammalian class. 



Darwin supposes that those variations which are profitable 

 to the individual of any species, in its complex relations to other 

 organic beings, will tend to the preservation of the individual, 

 and will generally be inherited by its offspring. In the struggle 

 for existence which all animals, not excepting man, are con- 

 stantly engaged in (and perhaps, it has been truly said, the nearer 

 the kindred the more internecine), such modified descendants 

 will have a much better chance of surviving than those not so 

 favoured, and the latter will die out. Now comes into play 

 Darwin's great talisman, " Natural Selection," or the preserva- 

 tion of favourable and the rejection of injurious variations 

 either in plants or animals. Since many more individuals are 

 born than can possibly survive, those individuals and those 

 variations which possess any advantage, however slight, over 

 the rest are in the long run sure to survive, to propagate, and to 

 occupy the field, to the exclusion or destruction of their weaker 

 brethren. It elucidates, says Prof. Asa Gray, the advantages 



* 1 Eeigu of Law.' 



