follow that they cannot have originated in
any other way. For _all_ species to have been created such as they now
are, is simply inconsistent with the premisses. Whatever beings may at
any remote epoch have been created, there must, according to the
conditions involved, have been amongst their descendants some better
fitted, by reason of divergence from the parent type, for engaging in
internecine strife than those, if any such there were, which adhered
closely to that type. Whether, then, among the survivors from the first
engagement in that never-ending struggle for life which must have
commenced soon after the creation, there were or were not any exact
representatives of the parent type, there must have been some exhibiting
more or less of divergence from that type. Among the descendants of
these, again, there must have been some who, together with the
structural or other advantages inherited from their immediate ancestors,
possessed, moreover, some advantages first nascent in themselves, and
who were similarly enabled thereby to prevail over their less gifted
competitors, and similarly to transmit all their advantages to a
posterity, some members of which would similarly be born with certain
new advantages in addition. By continual repetition of these processes,
and the consequent accumulation of divergencies from the original
pattern, however slight those divergencies might separately be, there
could not but eventually become formed breeds so distinct from each
other as to be to all intents and purposes distinct species, in
whichsoever of its many vague senses the term 'species' be understood.
Now these species, instead of having been created, would be the result
of divergence from their created progenitor. Whether, therefore, any
created species do or do not still exist, it is certain that among
existing species there are some that were not created, but which have
been gradually evolved, and evolved, too, through survival of the
fittest. Mr. Darwin, then, is fairly entitled to the praise of having
placed beyond dispute that a process called by himself 'Natural
Selection,' and by Mr. Herbert Spencer 'Survival of the Fittest,' has
almost from the commencement of organic life been, and still is, in
active operation; that it is a cause which must needs have originated
some species, and is quite competent to have originated all that still
exist; whereas creation, the only other suggested cause, cannot be
conceived to ha