Origin of Species Variorum

or highness. We have also seen that, as the specialisation of parts and organs is an advantage to each being, so natural selection will tend to render the organisation of each being more specialised and perfect, and in this sense higher; not but that it may and will leave many creatures with simple and unimproved structures fitted for simple conditions of life, and in some cases will even degrade or simplify the organisation, yet leaving such degraded beings better fitted for their new walks of life. ↑ ↑ In another and more general manner, new species will become superior to their predecessors; for they will have to beat in the struggle for life all the older forms with which they come into close competition. We may therefore conclude that if under a nearly similar climate the eocene inhabitants of the world could be put into competition with the existing inhabitants, the former would be beaten and exterminated by the latter, as would the secondary by the eocene, and the palæozoic by the secondary forms. So that by this fundamental test of victory in the battle for life, as well as by the standard of the specialisation of organs, modern forms ought on the theory of natural selection to stand higher than ancient forms. Is this the case? A large majority of palæontologists would .. answer in the affirmative; and I suppose that the answer must be admitted as true, though difficult of full proof.

It is no valid objection to this conclusion, ... that certain Brachiopods have been but slightly modified from an extremely remote geological epoch. It is not an insuperable difficulty that Foraminifera have not, ... as insisted on by Dr. Carpenter, progressed in organisation since even the Laurentian epoch; for some organisms would have to remain fitted for simple conditions of life, and what could be better fitted for this end than these lowly organised Protozoa? It is no great difficulty that