| → elaborately 1859 1860 1861 1866 |
| into an elaborately 1869 1872 |
|
|
will be
This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently
struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. |
|
| This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life, and
what I have called Divergence of Character. In the next chapter I shall discuss the complex and little known laws of
In the
succeeding chapters, the most apparent and gravest difficulties
the theory will be given: namely, first, the difficulties of transitions, or
how a simple being or a simple organ can be changed and perfected into a highly developed being or
→elaborately
constructed organ; secondly, the subject of Instinct, or the mental powers of animals; thirdly, Hybridism, or the infertility of species and the fertility of varieties when intercrossed; and fourthly, the imperfection of the Geological Record. In the next chapter I shall consider the geological succession of organic beings throughout time; in the
and
their geographical distribution throughout space; in the
their classification or mutual affinities, both when mature and in an embryonic condition. In the last chapter I shall give a
|
