These laws, taken in the largest sense,
being Growth with reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by
reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the
conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as
to lead to a 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 conceiving, 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
Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone
circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a
beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and
are being evolved.
GLOSSARY OF THE PRINCIPAL SCIENTIFIC TERMS USED IN THE PRESENT VOLUME.
(I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W.S. Dallas for this Glossary, which
has been given because several readers have complained to me that some of
the terms used were unintelligible to them. Mr. Dallas has endeavoured to
give the explanations of the terms in as popular a form as possible.)
ABERRANT.--Forms or groups of animals or plants which deviate in important
characters from their nearest allies, so as not to be easily included in
the same group with them, are said to be aberrant.
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