xi, c, 4 Copeland: Natural Selection 167 



One of Doctor Willis's objections to natural selection (p. 321) 

 escapes me completely: 



Natural selection, again, to be effective, requires that many forms shall 

 modify in the same direction. * * * The most numerous group of the 

 Ceylon endemics are these Very Rares, and the numbers decrease steadily 

 up to Very Common. They must obviously have begun at one or other end 

 of the scale. They could not begin at Very Rare (on the theory of natural 

 selection), because the numbers are insufficient. 



I do not believe that natural selection, to be effective, requires 

 that many forms shall modify in the same direction. If "modify" 

 means "vary," I am skeptical as to there being any evidence, 

 proving that many forms ever do this in the same direction. 

 Natural selection, to produce a definite species, requires rather 

 that a fit form maintain its advantageous characteristics without 

 modification, while the individuals can become numerous and 

 spread. A single isolated individual, well adapted to its location, 

 may surely become the ancestor of a common species. If the 

 theory of natural selection really required that a species could 

 not come into existence at "Very Rare," but must be very common 

 at its first appearance, it would be a strange theory indeed. It is 

 hardly fair to a theory to impute to it quite that measure of 

 absurdity. 



On page 340, Doctor Willis says, "One may conclude that 

 the local endemic species have not been developed in any kind 

 of advantageous response to local conditions." More explicitly, 

 on page 15 of the Annals of the Royal Botanic Gardens, volume 

 IV, he says, "It is at least entirely doubtful if any given species is 

 especially adapted for the circumstances in which it is found." 

 This shows how widely men of training and field experience may 

 differ in their views. For, aside from the distinctive features of 

 possible ephemeral species, I do not believe that there is a plant 

 in the world that does not exhibit adaptation in the whole of 

 its structure, nor which, so far as it is restricted to localities 

 by environmental conditions, fails to be specifically adapted to 

 the local conditions under which it thrives. My paper on the 

 Comparative Ecology of San Ramon Polypodiaceae contains 

 hundreds of illustrations of particular adaptions to particular 

 local conditions. It is not merely that water plants and land 

 plants differ, or that plants restricted to the shade differ from 

 those thriving in open sunshine ; but that in genus after genus, 

 where the genus has species under varying conditions, the 

 different species differ from one another in ways that specifically 

 adapt them to their distinctive environments. 



