| ↑ 1 blocks not present in 1869 1872; present in 1866 1859 1860 1861 |
| Natural selection will never produce in a being anything injurious to itself, for natural selection acts solely by and for the good of each.
|
|
| → tends only to make each organic being as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the other inhabitants of the same country with which it comes into competition. 1872 |
| tends only to make each organic being as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the other inhabitants of the same country with which it has to struggle for existence. 1859 1860 1861 1869 |
| will not produce absolute perfection, nor do we always meet, as far as we can judge, with this high standard under nature. 1866 |
|
| → by Müller 1866 1869 1872 |
| on high authority, 1859 1860 1861 |
|
| → OMIT 1866 1869 1872 |
| wasp or of the 1859 1860 1861 |
|
| → kinds of enemies, 1872 |
| attacking animals, 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
|
| → that it has since 1872 |
| which has 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
|
| → for some other object, such as to produce galls, since 1872 |
| to cause galls subsequently 1859 1860 |
| for some purpose, such as to produce galls, subsequently 1861 1866 |
| for some other purpose, such as to produce galls, subsequently 1869 |
|
|
the good of each. No organ will be formed, as Paley has remarked, for the purpose of causing pain or for doing an injury to its possessor. If a fair balance be struck between the good and evil caused by each part, each will be found on the whole advantageous. After the lapse of time, under changing conditions of life, if any part comes to be injurious, it will be modified; or if it be not so, the being will become
as myriads have become extinct. ↑
|
|
| Natural selection
→tends only to make each organic being as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the other inhabitants of the same country with which it comes into competition. And we see that this is the
of perfection attained under nature. The endemic productions of New Zealand, for instance, are perfect one compared with another; but they are now rapidly yielding before the advancing legions of plants and animals introduced from Europe. Natural selection will not produce absolute perfection, nor do we always meet, as far as we can judge, with this high standard under nature. The correction for the aberration of light is
→by Müller
not to be perfect even in that most perfect organ, the
Helmholtz, whose judgment no one will dispute, after describing in the strongest terms the wonderful powers of the human eye, adds these remarkable words: "That which we have discovered in the way of inexactness and imperfection in the optical machine and in the image on the retina, is as nothing in comparison with the incongruities which we have just come across in the domain of the sensations. One might say that nature has taken delight in accumulating contradictions in order to remove all foundation from the theory of a pre-existing harmony between the external and internal worlds." If our reason
us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of inimitable contrivances in nature, this same reason tells us, though we may easily err on both sides, that some other
are less perfect. Can we consider the sting of the
→OMIT
bee as perfect, which, when used against many
→kinds of enemies,
cannot be withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and
inevitably causes the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera? |
|
| If we look at the sting of the bee, as having
existed in a remote progenitor as a boring and serrated instrument, like that in so many members of the same great order, and
→that it has since
been modified but not perfected for its present purpose, with the poison originally adapted
→for some other object, such as to produce galls, since
intensified, we can perhaps
how it is that the use of the sting should so often cause the
own death: for if on the whole the power of stinging be useful to the
it will
all the requirements of natural
|
