|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: my theory from some one parent-species, and of which the several new
species have become modified through natural selection in accordance with
their diverse habits. Then, from the many slight successive steps of
variation having supervened at a rather late age, and having been inherited
at a corresponding age, the young of the new species of our supposed genus
will manifestly tend to resemble each other much more closely than do the
adults, just as we have seen in the case of pigeons. We may extend this
view to whole families or even classes. The fore-limbs, for instance,
which served as legs in the parent-species, may become, by a long course of
modification, adapted in one descendant to act as hands, in another as
paddles, in another as wings; and on the above two principles--namely of
On the Origin of Species |
