Page - 385 - in The Origin of Species

STATE OF DEVELOPMENT COMPARED 385 the organisation of each being more specialised and perfect, and in this sense higher; not but that it may leave many creatures with simple and unimproved structures fitted for simple conditions of life, and in some cases will even de- grade or simplify the organisation, yet leaving such degraded beings better fitted for their new walks of life. In another and more general manner, new species become superior to their predecessors; for they have to beat in the struggle for life all the older forms, with which they come into close competition. We may therefore conclude that if under a nearly similar climate the eocene inhabitants of the world could be put into competition with the existing inhabitants, the former would be beaten and exterminated by the latter, as would the secondary by the eocene, and the palaeozoic by the secondary forms. So that by this fundamental test of victory in the battle for life, as well as by the standard of the specialisation of organs, modern forms ought, on the theory of natural selection, to stand higher than ancient forms. Is this the case? A large majority of palaeon- tologists would answer in the affirmative; and it seems that this answer must be admitted as true, though difficult of proof. It is no valid objection to this conclusion, that certain Brachiopods have been but slightly modified from an ex- tremely remote geological epoch; and that certain land and fresh-water shells have remained nearly the same, from the time when, as far as is known, they first appeared. It is not an insuperable difficulty that Foraminifera have not, as in- sisted on by Dr. Carpenter, progressed in organisation since even the I.aurentian epoch ; for some organisms would have to remain fitted for simple conditions of life, and what could be better fitted for this end than these lowly organised Pro- tozoa? Such objections as the above would be fatal to my view, if it included advance in organisation as a necessary contingent. They would likewise be fatal, if the above Fora- minifera, for instance, could be proved to have first come into existence during the Laurentian epoch, or the above Brachiopods during the Cambrian formation ; for in this case, there would not have been time sufficient for the de- velopment of these organisms up to the standard which they M—HC XI