any new creative
acts of God, and without any particular providential care over the new
species.

The particular process according to which this multiplication and
improvement took place, Mr. Darwin calls Natural Selection. Every
creature tends to increase and multiply; and the very slowest breeders
would soon fill the earth, were their multiplication not checked by
hunger, by the attacks of enemies, and by the struggle for existence.
But all are not born alike strong, or swift, or of the same color; some
of the same brood are better fitted to escape enemies, or to fight the
battle of life, than others. These will survive, while the weak ones
perish. This Mr. Wallace calls, the survival of the fittest. They will
transmit their superior size, or swiftness, or better color, or whatever
superiority they possess, to their offspring. The process will go on in
successive generations, each adding an infinitesimal quantity to the
stock gained by the past generation; just as breeders of improved stock
increase the weight of cattle by breeding from the largest; or breeders
of race-horses increase the speed by breeding from the swiftest. In this
way varieties from the same family will grow into different species.
And, as only those differences which are beneficial to the animal are
preserved, they will grow into improved species; and, as variations of
all sorts take place, so all sorts of varieties and species arise in
process of time. All will thus tend to perfect themselves according to
the laws of nature, and without any special oversight or care of God, or
of anybody but Natural Selection; which Mr. Darwin takes special care to
describe as an unintelligent selector. He defines the nature which
selects to be "the aggregate action and product of natural laws," and
these laws are "the sequences of events as ascertained by us." He
ridicules the idea of God's special endowment of the fantail pigeon with
additional feathers, or of the bull dog's jaws with strength, and says,
"But if we give up the principle in the one case, if we do not admit
that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided in
order, for instance, that the greyhound, that perfect image of symmetry
and vigor, might be formed; no shadow of reason can be assigned for the
belief that variations alike in nature, and the results of the same
general laws which have been the groundwork through Natural Selection of
the most perfectly adapted animals in the