As a matter of fact, I do not see any greater tendency to acquiesce in Mr. Darwin's claim on behalf of natural selection than there was a few years ago, but on the contrary, that discontent is daily growing. To say nothing of the Rev. J. J. Murphy and Professor Mivart, the late Mr. G. H. Lewes did not find the objection a superficial one, nor yet did he find it disappear" with a little familiarity"; on the contrary, the more familiar he became with it the less he appeared to like it. I may even go, without fear, so far as to say that any writer who now uses the expression "natural selection," writes himself down thereby as behind the age. It is with great pleasure that I observe Mr. Francis Darwin in his recent lecture1 to have kept clear of it altogether, and to have made use of no expression, and advocated no doctrine to which either Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck would not have readily assented. I think I may affirm confidently that a few years ago any such lecture would have contained repeated reference to Natural Selection. For my own part I know of few passages in any theological writer which please me less than the one which I have above followed sentence by sentence. I know of few which should better serve to show us the sort of danger we should run if we were to let men of science get the upper hand of us. Natural Selection, then, is only another way of saying "Nature." Mr. Darwin seems to be aware of this when he writes, "Nature, if I may be allowed to personify the natural preservation or survival of the fittest." And again, at the bottom of the same page, "It may metaphorically be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing throughout the world the slightest variations." It may be metaphorically said Nature, 14th and 21st March 1878. 2 Origin of Species, p. 65. 1 that Nature is daily and hourly scrutinizing, but it cannot be said consistently with any right use of words, metaphorical or otherwise, that natural selection scrutinizes, unless natural selection is merely a somewhat cumbrous synonym for Nature. When, therefore, Mr. Darwin says that natural selection is the “most important, but not the exclusive means " whereby any modification has been effected, he is really saying that Nature is the most important means of modificationwhich is only another way of telling us that variation causes variations, and is all very true as far as it goes. I did not read Professor Mivart's Lessons from Nature until I had written all my own criticism on Mr. Darwin's position. From that work, however, I now quote the following: "It cannot then be contested that the far-famed Origin of Species, that, namely, by Natural Selection,' has been repudiated in fact, though not expressly even by its own author. This circumstance, which is simply undeniable, might dispense us from any further consideration of the hypothesis itself. But the "conspiracy of silence," which has accompanied the repudiation tends to lead the unthinking many to suppose that the same importance still attaches to it as at first. On this account it may be well to ask the question, what, after all, is Natural Selection'? "The answer may seem surprising to some, but it is none the less true that 'Natural Selection' is simply nothing. It is an apparently positive name for a really negative effect, and is therefore an eminently misleading term. By Natural Selection' is meant the result of all the destructive agencies of Nature, destructive to individuals and to races by destroying their lives or their powers of propagation. Evidently, the cause of the distinction of species (supposing such distinction to be brought about in natural generation) must be that which causes variation, and variation in one determinate direction in at least several individuals simultaneously." I should like to have added here the words " and during many successive generations," but they will go very sufficiently without saying. "At the same time," continues Professor Mivart, " it is freely conceded that the destructive agencies in nature do succeed in preventing the perpetuation of monstrous, abortive, and feeble attempts at the performance of the evolutionary process, that they rapidly remove antecedent forms when new ones are evolved more in harmony with surrounding conditions, and that their action results in the formation of new characters when these have once attained sufficient completeness to be of real utility to their possessor. "Continued reflection, and five years further pondering over the problems of specific origin have more and more convinced me that the conception, that the origin of all species man included' is due simply to conditions which are (to use Mr. Darwin's own words) 'strictly accidental,' is a conception utterly irrational." * "With regard to the conception as now put forward by Mr. Darwin, I cannot truly characterize it but by an epithet which I employ only with much reluctance. I weigh my words and have present to my mind the many distinguished naturalists who have accepted the notion, and yet I cannot hesitate to call it a puerile hypothesis.' I am afraid I cannot go with Professor Mivart farther than this point, though I have a strong feeling as though his conclusion is true, that " the material universe is 1 Lessons from Nature, p. 300. 1 always and everywhere sustained and directed by an infinite cause, for which to us the word mind is the least inadequate and misleading symbol." But I feel that any attempt to deal with such a question is going far beyond that sphere in which man's powers may be at present employed with advantage: I trust, therefore, that I may never try to verify it, and am indifferent whether it is correct or not. Again, I should probably differ from Professor Mivart in finding this mind inseparable from the material universe in which we live and move. So that I could neither conceive of such a mind influencing and directing the universe from a point as it were outside the universe itself, nor yet of a universe as existing without there being present-or having been presentin its every particle something for which mind should be the least inadequate and misleading symbol. But the subject is far beyond me. As regards Professor Mivart's denunciations of natural selection, I have only one fault to find with them, namely, that they do not speak out with sufficient bluntness. The difficulty of showing the fallacy of Mr. Darwin's position, is the difficulty of grasping a will-o'the-wisp. A concluding example will put this clearly before the reader, and at the same time serve to illustrate the most tangible feature of difference between Mr. Darwin and Lamarck. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE CASE OF THE MADEIRA A N ISLAND OF NO VERY GREAT EXTENT is surrounded by a sea which cuts it off for many miles from the nearest land. It lies a good deal exposed to winds, so that the beetles which live upon it are in continual danger of being blown out to sea if they fly during the hours and seasons when the wind is blowing. It is found that an unusually large proportion of the beetles inhabiting this island are either without wings or have their wings in a useless and merely rudimentary state; and that a large number of kinds which are very common on the nearest mainland, but which are compelled to use their wings in seeking their food, are here entirely wanting. It is also observed that the beetles on this island generally lie much concealed until the wind lulls and the sun shines. These are the facts; let us now see how Lamarck would treat them. Lamarck would say that the beetles once being on this island it became one of the conditions of their existence that they should not get blown out to sea. For once blown out to sea, they would be quite certain to be drowned. Beetles, when they fly, generally fly for some purpose, and do not like having that purpose interfered with by something which can carry them allwhithers, whether they like it or no. If they are flying and find the wind taking them in a wrong direction, or seaward-which they know will be fatal to them-they stop flying as soon as may be, and alight on terra firma. But if the wind is very prevalent the beetles can find but little opportunity for flying at all: they will therefore lie quiet all day and do as best they can to get their living on foot instead of on the wing. There will thus |