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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: physical conditions of the country, and more especially on the nature of
the other inhabitants with which the varying species comes into
competition. Hence it is by no means surprising that one species should
retain the same identical form much longer than others; or, if changing,
that it should change less. We see the same fact in geographical
distribution; for instance, in the land-shells and coleopterous insects of
Madeira having come to differ considerably from their nearest allies on the
continent of Europe, whereas the marine shells and birds have remained
unaltered. We can perhaps understand the apparently quicker rate of change
in terrestrial and in more highly organised productions compared with
marine and lower productions, by the more complex relations of the higher
On the Origin of Species |
