MR. DARWIN ON NATURAL SELECTION. 3^3 



cealed identity of opinion as to the main facts. The 

 reader is thus led to look upon it as something positive 

 and special, and, in spite of Mr. Darwin's disclaimer, to 

 think of it as an actively efficient cause. 



Few will deny that this complaint is a just one, or 

 that ninety-nine out of a hundred readers of average 

 intelligence, if asked, after reading Mr. Darwin's 

 * Origin of Species,' what was the most important cause 

 of modification, would answer " natural selection." 

 Let the same readers have read the ' Zoonomia ' of 

 Dr. Erasmus Darwin, or the 'Philosophic Zoologique' 

 of Lamarck, and they would at once reply, " the wishes 

 of an animal or plant, as varying with its varying con- 

 ditions," or more briefly, " sense of need." 



" Whereas," continues Mr. Darwin, " it " (natural 

 selection) " implies only the preservation of such varia- 

 tions as arise, and are beneficial to the being under its 

 conditions of life. No one objects to agriculturists 

 speaking of the potent effects of man's selection." 



Of course not ; for there is an actual creature man, 

 who actually does select with a set purpose in order to 

 produce such and such a result, which result he pre- 

 sently produces. 



" And in this case the individual differences given 

 by nature, which man for some object selects, must 

 first occur." 



This shows that the complaint has already reached 

 Mr. Darwin, that in not showing us how " the indivi- 

 dual differences first occur," he is really leaving us 

 absolutely in the dark as to the cause of all modification 

 giving us an ' Origin of Species' with " the origin " cut 



