| → within each class tend 1861 1866 1869 1872 |
| tend 1859 1860 |
|
| → OMIT 1861 1866 1869 1872 |
| we now see everywhere around us, and which 1859 1860 |
|
| → is 1861 1866 |
| seems to me 1859 1860 |
| under what is called the Natural System, is 1869 1872 |
|
| → make truer, 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
| make more strictly correct, 1859 |
| confirm, 1872 |
|
| ↑ 1 blocks not present in 1859 1860 1861; present in 1866 1869 1872 |
| We can see why throughout nature the same general end is gained by an almost infinite diversity of means;
for every peculiarity when once acquired is long inherited, and structures already diversified
in many ways
have to be adapted for the same general purpose.
|
|
|
become
diversified in habits and structure, so as to be
to seize on many and widely different places in the economy of nature, there will be a constant tendency in natural selection to preserve the most divergent offspring of any one species.
during a long-continued course of modification, the slight
characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of
of the same genus. New and improved varieties will inevitably supplant and exterminate the older, less
and intermediate varieties; and thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct objects. Dominant species belonging to the larger groups
→within each class tend
to give birth to new and dominant forms; so that each large group tends to become still larger, and at the same time more divergent in character. But as all groups cannot thus
increasing in size, for the world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less dominant. This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the
inevitable contingency of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of
in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great classes, which
→OMIT
has prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings
→is
utterly inexplicable on the theory of creation. |
|
| As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden
it can act only by
short and slow steps.
the canon of "Natura non facit saltum," which every fresh addition to our knowledge tends to
→make truer,
is on this theory
intelligible. ↑
We
see why nature is prodigal
|
