As the differences became greater,
the inferior animals with intermediate characters, being neither very swift
nor very strong, would not have been used for breeding, and will thus have
tended to disappear. Here, then, we see in man's productions the action of
what may be called the principle of divergence, causing differences, at
first barely appreciable, steadily to increase, and the breeds to diverge
in character, both from each other and from their common parent.
But how, it may be asked, can any analogous principle apply in nature? I
believe it can and does apply most efficiently (though it was a long time
before I saw how), from the simple circumstance that the more diversified
the descendants from any one species become in structure, constitution, and
habits, by so much will they be better enabled to seize on many and widely
diversified places in the polity of nature, and so be enabled to increase
in numbers.
We can clearly discern this in the case of animals with simple habits.
Take the case of a carnivorous quadruped, of which the number that can be
supported in any country has long ago arrived at its full average. If its
natural power of increase be allowed to act, it can succeed in increasing
(the country not undergoing any change in conditions) only by its varying
descendants seizing on places at present occupied by other animals: some
of them, for instance, being enabled to feed on new kinds of prey, either
dead or alive; some inhabiting new stations, climbing trees, frequenting
water, and some perhaps becoming less carnivorous.
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