Evening star., 1925-08-08
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL.

/ and that the vigorous, the healthy and
happy survive and multiply
| OF the survival Of the fittest, he says:
las buds give rise by growth to fresh
buds. and these, IL vigorous, branch
OUT and overtop on all sides many
feebler branch. so by generation 1
believe IL has been with the great tree
OF life, which fills with it's dead and
| broken branches the crust of the earth
and covers the surface with it's ever
branching and beautiful ramifica-
| tions."
j skip consideration of crosses, n.y.
| brids and many other topics treated at
I length, and bring the reader without
more ado to Chapter XIV, "Recapitu-
lation and Conclusion" wherein our
author says he is convinced that spe-
cies have been modified during a long
course OF descent. Il do not ina agine
Mr.. Darwin put much faith In Noah S
ark)
This modification, he continues, has
been effected chiefly through the natu-
raj selection Of numerous successive,
| slight, favorable variations; aided in
an important manner bv the inherited
effects of the use and disuse of parts;
and in an unimportant manner, that
is, in rela ton TO adaptive structures,
whether past or present, by the di-
| rect action of external conditions, and
by variations which seem TO us in our
ignorance to arise spontaneously.
Darwin declares he sees no good
| reason why the views given in this
volume should shock the religious
feelings of any one" instancing the
attack by LeibnitZ on the law of the
attraction Of gravity. He says that a
celebrated author and divine had writ
ten him tht "he has gradually learned
| to see that it is just as noble a con-
ception of Deity to believe that He ere
ated a few original forms capable of
self development into other and need
full forms. as 10 believe that He re-
quired a fresh act OF creation to sup
ply the voids caused by the action of
His laws"
seem 10 be fully sd atisfied with the
view thai each species has been in
| dependently created" concludes DR..
| Darwin. ITO my mind, IT, accords
better with what we know OF the laws
| impressed upon matter by the Crea-
| tor, that the production and extinc-
tion of the past and present inhabi-
tants Of the world should have been
due TO secondary causes, like those
determining the birth and death Of the
| individual. When ] view all beings
| lineal descendants of some few beings
| which lived long before the first bed
| of the Cambrian system was de-
| posted, they seem to me to become
| ennobled. 1t is interesting to
| contemplate a tangled bank, clothed
with many plants of many kinds. with
| birds singing on the bushes, with va
rious insects fitting about, and with
| worms crawling through the damp
earth, and to reflect that these Ella b.
| orately constructed forms, so differ
ent from each other, and dependent
| upon each other in so complete a
manner, have all been produced by
| laws acting around us.
These laws. taken in the largest
sense, being Growth with reproduc.
/ ton: Inheritance which is almost i'm.
piled by reproduction, Varia bility from
! the direct and indirect action of the
conditions of life, and from use and
| dlsuse; Ratio of Increase so high as
to lead to Struggle for Life. and. as
! a consequence, to Natural Selection
| entailing Divergence of Character, and
| the Extinction Of less improved forms
| Thus, from the war of nature, from
| famine and death, the most exalted
| object which we are capable of con
| ceiving, namely, the production of the
higher animals, directly follows.
There is grandeur in this view OF
! life, with its several powers. having
| been originally breathed by the Crea
| tor into a few forms, or into one
and that, while this planet has gone
circling on according to the fixed law
Of gravity, from so simple a begin
ming, endless forms most beautiful
and most wonderful have been, and
! are heinc eyoIyed -