n 6 A Factor in Evohitiou 



Assuming the principle of natural selection in any case, 

 and saying that, according to it, if an organism do not have 

 the necessary qualifications it will be killed off, it still 

 remains in that instance to find what the qualifications are 

 which this organism is to have if it is to be kept alive. So 

 we may say that the means of survival is always an addi- 

 tional question to the negative statement of the operation 

 of natural selection. 



This latter question, of course, the theory of variations 

 aims to answer. The positive qualifications which the 

 organism has arise as congenital variations of a kind which 

 enable the organism to cope with the conditions of life. 

 This is the positive side of Darwinism, as the principle 

 of natural selection is the negative side. 1 



Now it is in relation to the theory of variations, and not 

 in relation to that of natural selection, that organic selec- 

 tion has its main force. Organic selection points out 

 qualifications of a positive kind which enable organisms 

 to meet the environment and cope with it, while natural 

 selection remains exactly what it was, the negative law 

 that if the organism does not succeed in living, then it 

 dies. As formulating the place of such qualifications on 

 the part of organisms, organic selection presents several 

 additional features. 



i. If we hold, as has been argued above, that the 

 method of individual accommodation is always the same 

 (that is, that it has a natural method), being always accom- 

 plished by a certain typical sort of nervous or vital process 

 (i.e., being always neuro-genetic), then we may ask 

 whether that sort of process and the consciousness 



1 See also the remarks made above, Chap. III. 4 ; and the views of 

 Headley and Conn in Appendix C. 



