Origin of Species Variorum

→ do not include many 1869 1872

include few 1859 1860 1861 1866

→ by catastrophes; and 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

OMIT 1872

→ lapse of actual 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

relative, though not actual lapse of 1872

→ OMIT 1869

quite incomprehensible by us, 1859 1860 1861 1866

→ short, 1869

a mere fragment of time, 1859 1860 1861 1866

→ appeared on the stage. 1869

was created. 1859 1860 1861 1866

→ based on a new foundation, 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

securely based on the foundation already well laid by Mr. Herbert Spencer, 1872

attempting to correlate as strictly contemporaneous two formations, which →do not include many identical species, by the general succession of

their

the

forms of life. As species are produced and exterminated by slowly acting and still existing causes, and not by miraculous acts of

creation;

creation

and →by catastrophes; and as the most important of all causes of organic change is one which is almost independent of altered and perhaps suddenly altered physical conditions, namely, the mutual relation of organism to organism,— the improvement of one

being

organism

entailing the improvement or the extermination of others; it follows, that the amount of organic change in the fossils of consecutive formations probably serves as a fair measure of the →lapse of actual time. A number of species, however, keeping in a body might remain for a long period unchanged, whilst within

the

this

same period, several of these species, by migrating into new countries and coming into competition with foreign associates, might become modified; so that we must not overrate the accuracy of organic change as a measure of time. During early periods of the

earth's

earths

history, when the forms of life were probably fewer and simpler, the rate of change was probably slower; and at the first dawn of life, when very few forms of the simplest structure existed, the rate of change may have been slow in an extreme degree. The

whole

....

history of the world, as at present known, although of

immense

length

length,

→OMIT will hereafter be recognised as →short, compared with the ages which

have

must have

elapsed since the first

creature,

organic beings,