| CLASSIFICATION, groups subordinate to groups— Natural system— Rules and difficulties in classification, explained on the theory of descent with modification— Classification of varieties— Descent always used in classification— Analogical or adaptive characters— Affinities, general,
and radiating— Extinction separates and defines groups— MORPHOLOGY, between members of the same class, between parts of the same individual— EMBRYOLOGY, laws of, explained by variations not supervening at an early age, and being inherited at a corresponding age— RUDIMENTARY ORGANS; their origin explained— Summary. |
| FROM
→the most remote period in the history of the world
organic beings
→have been found to
each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is
not arbitrary like the grouping of the stars in constellations. The existence of groups would have been of simple
if one group had been exclusively fitted to inhabit the land, and another the water; one to feed on flesh, another on vegetable matter, and so on; but the case is widely
for it is notorious how commonly members of even the same sub-group have different habits. In
second and fourth chapters, on Variation and on Natural Selection, I have attempted to show that
→within each country it
is the widely ranging, the much diffused and common, that is the dominant
belonging to the larger
→in each class, which
vary most. The varieties, or incipient species, thus
ultimately become
→OMIT
into new and distinct species; and these, on the principle of inheritance, tend to produce other new and dominant species. Consequently the groups which are now large, and which generally include many dominant species, tend to go on increasing
in size. I further attempted to show that from the varying descendants of each species trying to occupy as many and as different places as possible in the economy of nature,
→they constantly tend
to
→diverge in character. This
→latter conclusion is
|
