d was developed from "mere animal creatures."
Even a universal law of world-formation (cosmic evolution) was set forth
by Kant in a work which he published anonymously in 1775.

In its relations to animal life a development theory was first
clearly set forth by Karl Ernst von Baer (died 1876). In his
_"Entwickelungsgeschichte der Tiere"_ (1828), the author explains
"Entwickelung" as a progress from simple to complex forms. He believes
that in evolution there is a fundamental idea that "goes through all the
forms of cosmic and animal development." A predecessor of von Baer had
been the Frenchman, Lamarck. From von Baer, Herbert Spencer, about 1850,
adopted the definition of evolution.

The hypothesis entered a new phase through Charles Darwin's epochmaking
work: _"The Origin of Species."_ The keynote of Darwin's theory is
Natural Selection, by which term the development of all living forms is
referred to the working of certain laws which in the reproduction of
plants and animals preserved those individuals which were best fitted to
survive the struggle for existence. The Darwinian theory may be
summarized thus:

The Darwinian Hypothesis.

1. Every kind of animal and plant tends to increase in numbers in a
geometrical progression.

2. Every kind of animal and plant transmits a general likeness, with
individual differences, to its offspring.

3. Past time has been practically infinite.

4. Every individual has to endure a very severe struggle for existence,
owing to the tendency to geometrical increase of all kinds of animals
and plants, while the total animal and vegetable population (man and his
agency excepted) remains almost stationary.

5. Thus, every variation of a kind tending to save the life of the
individual possessing it, or to enable it more surely to propagate its
kind, will in the long run be preserved and will transmit its favorable
peculiarity to some of its offspring, which peculiarity will thus become
intensified till it reaches the maximum degree of utility. On the other
hand, individuals presenting unfavorable peculiarities will be
ruthlessly destroyed (_Survival of the Fittest_), [tr. note: sic
punctuation]

The basis of the theory then is that animals and plants multiply very
rapidly and, second, that the offspring always vary slightly from the
parents, though generally very closely resembling them. Mr. Alfred
Russel Wallace says: "From the first fact or law there follows,
necessarily, a c