THE THEORY OF DESCENT 261 



not the possession of truth but the searching after it, that 

 gives happiness to man. It was but an outcome of this 

 mental condition that Darwin's polemics never left the 

 path of true scientific discussions, that he never in all 

 his life abused any one who found reason to combat his 

 hypotheses, and that he never turned a logical problem 

 into a question of morality. 



How different is this from what many of Darwin's 

 followers have made out of his doctrines, especially in 

 Germany ; how far is " Darwinism " removed from Darwin's 

 own teaching and character ! 



It is to Darwinism of the dogmatic kind, however, that 

 our next discussions are to relate, for, thanks to its 

 dogmatism, it has the advantage of allowing the very sharp 

 formulation of a few causal factors, which a priori might 

 be thought to be concerned in organic transformism, though 

 we are bound to say that a really searching analysis of 

 these factors ought to have led to their rejection from the 

 very beginning. 



The logical structure of dogmatic Darwinism reveals 

 two different parts, which have nothing at all to do with 

 one another. 



NATURAL SELECTION 



We shall first study that part of it which is known 

 under the title of natural selection, irrespective of the 

 nature of the causes of primary differences, or, in other 

 words, the nature of variability. This part may be said 

 to belong to Darwin's personal teachings and not only to 

 " Darwinism." The offspring of a certain number of adults 

 show differences compared with each other ; there are more 



