LECTURE VIII 



DARWIN, AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



THE aim of this lecture is to show that most of the post-Dar- 

 winian criticism of natural selection might have been avoided if 

 Darwin and Wallace, and they who have come after, had not been 

 unconsciously led to make use of words and forms which have 

 since outlived their meaning. 



I do not allude to the assertion so often made that natural selec- 

 tion personifies nature, and attributes to it the power of deliberate 

 choice ; for no one who thinks for himself can attach any such 

 meaning to Darwin's words, or be misled by them. 



The Duke of Argyll, indeed, says Darwin's work is " essentially 

 the image of mechanical necessity concealed under the clothes and 

 parading in the mask of mental purpose," since natural selection 

 " personifies an abstraction." If the roses in a garden differ among 

 themselves in power to resist cold, and the more tender ones are 

 found dead after a hard winter, the Duke of Argyll may, if he 

 sees fit, charge him who says the toughest ones have been selected, 

 with infantile belief in the personal agency of Jack Frost, but I 

 cannot believe thoughtful men will support him. 



If living things differ among themselves, and if those which 

 survive the struggle for existence are the ones which might have 

 been expected to survive, natural selection is a fact ; and while 

 opinions as to the value of this fact may differ, the name we call 

 it by matters little. 



One of the most familiar criticisms of natural selection is that, 

 since it does not produce, but only preserves, the fitness which 

 exists, it does not show why there should be any fit to survive, but 

 only why the unfit are exterminated. 



"Natural selection," says Darwin ("Origin," p. 75), "acts only 



183 



