QUOTE : Darwin’s great innovation in the theory of evolution was that he conceived of it not as a Lamarckian spontaneous ascent from higher to higher and from better to better, but as a phenomenon in which living beings showed (a) a spontaneous tendency to develop in many directions, and (b) a tendency to follow the pattern of their ancestors. The combination of these two effects was to prune an overlush developing nature and to deprive it of those organisms which were ill-adapted to their environment, by a process of “natural selection.” The result of this pruning was to leave a residual pattern of forms of life more or less well adapted to their environment. This residual pattern, according to Darwin, assumes the appearance of universal purposiveness.