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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: diverse habits, would naturally be thought to be correlated in some
necessary manner. So, again, I do not doubt that some apparent
correlations, occurring throughout whole orders, are entirely due to the
manner alone in which natural selection can act. For instance, Alph. De
Candolle has remarked that winged seeds are never found in fruits which do
not open: I should explain the rule by the fact that seeds could not
gradually become winged through natural selection, except in fruits which
opened; so that the individual plants producing seeds which were a little
better fitted to be wafted further, might get an advantage over those
producing seed less fitted for dispersal; and this process could not
possibly go on in fruit which did not open.
On the Origin of Species |
