Only The Fittest Will Survive.

It Is Not The Biggest, The Brightest Or The Best That Will Survive, But Those Who Adapt The Quickest.

I Am Quite Conscious That My Speculations Run Beyond The Bounds Of True Science....it Is A Mere Rag Of An Hypothesis With As Many Flaw[s] & Holes As Sound Parts.

The Theory Which I Would Offer, Is Simply, That As The Land With The Attached Reefs Subsides Very Gradually From The Action Of Subterranean Causes, The Coral-building Polypi Soon Raise Again Their Solid Masses To The Level Of The Water: But Not So With The Land; Each Inch Lost Is Irreclaimably Gone; As The Whole Gradually Sinks, The Water Gains Foot By Foot On The Shore, Till The Last And Highest Peak Is Finally Submerged.

A Bad Earthquake At Once Destroys The Oldest Associations: The World, The Very Emblem Of All That Is Solid, Has Moved Beneath Our Feet Like A Crust Over A Fluid; One Second Of Time Has Conveyed To The Mind A Strange Idea Of Insecurity, Which Hours Of Reflection Would Never Have Created.

With Savages, The Weak In Body Or Mind Are Soon Eliminated. We Civilized Men, On The Other Hand, Do Our Utmost To Check The Process Of Elimination. We Build Asylums For The Imbecile, The Maimed And The Sick. Thus The Weak Members Of Civilized Societies Propagate Their Kind. No One Who Has Attended To The Breeding Of Domestic Animals Will Doubt That This Must Be Highly Injurious To The Race Of Man. Hardly Anyone Is So Ignorant As To Allow His Worst Animals To Breed.