er natural law or
laws as yet undiscovered.[1] Also, that the consequences which have been
drawn from Evolution, whether exclusively Darwinian or not, to the
prejudice of religion, by no means follow from it, and are in fact
illegitimate.

The Darwinian theory of "Natural Selection" may be shortly stated
thus:[2]--

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

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

Every individual may present minute variations of any kind and in any
direction.

Past time has been practically infinite.

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.

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 favourable peculiarity to
some of its offspring, which peculiarity will thus become intensified {6}
till it reaches the maximum degree of utility. On the other hand,
individuals presenting unfavourable peculiarities will be ruthlessly
destroyed. The action of this law of Natural Selection may thus be well
represented by the convenient expression "survival of the fittest."[3]

Now this conception of Mr. Darwin's is perhaps the most interesting theory,
in relation to natural science, which has been promulgated during the
present century. Remarkable, indeed, is the way in which it groups together
such a vast and varied series of biological[4] facts, and even paradoxes,
which it appears more or less clearly to explain, as the following
instances will show. By this theory of "Natural Selection," light is thrown
on the more singular facts relating to the geographical distribution of
animals and plants; for example, on the resemblance between the past and
present inhabitants of different parts of the earth's surface. Thus in
Australia remains have been found of creatures closely allied to kangaroos
and other kinds of pouched beasts, which in the present day exist nowhere
but in the Australian region. Similarly in South America, and nowhere else,
are found sloths and armadillos, and in that same part of the world have
been discovered bones