The Relation of Organic to Natural Selection 1 1 7 



which may go with it may not be a variation appearing 

 early in the phylogenetic series. It is argued elsewhere 

 {Mental Development, pp. 200 ff. and 208 ff.) that this 

 is the most probable view. Organisms that did not have 

 some form of selective response to what was beneficial, as 

 opposed to what was damaging, in the environment, could 

 not have developed very far ; and as soon as such a varia- 

 tion did appear it would have immediate preeminence. 

 So we may say either that the selective vital property to- 

 gether with consciousness is a variation, or that it is a funda- 

 mental endowment of life and part of its final mystery. 



2. But however that may be, whether individual accom- 

 modation by selective reaction and consciousness be con- 

 sidered a variation or a final aspect of life, it is in any 

 case a vital cJiaracter of a very extraordinary kind. It 

 opens a great sphere for the application of the principle 

 of natural selection upon organisms, i.e., selection on the 

 basis of what they do, rather than of what they are ; of 

 the new use they make of their functions, rather than of 

 the mere possession of certain congenital characters. A 

 premium is set on plasticity and adaptability of function 

 rather than on congenital fixity of structure ; and this 

 adaptability reaches its highest level in the intelligence. 



3. It opens another field also for an analogous mode of 

 selection, i.e., the selection from particular overproduced 

 and modified reactions of the organism, by which the de- 

 termination of the organism's own growth and life history 

 is secured. If the young chick imitated the old duck 

 instead of the old hen, it would perish ; it can only 

 learn those new things which its present equipment will 

 permit not swimming. So the chick's own possible 

 actions and accommodations in its lifetime have to be 



