DARWINISM ATTACKED. 89 



liar identity of the circumstances. And this is when a single 

 definitive characteristic is so all-important and dominant in 

 the life of a race or species that its presence really has a 

 life-and-death-determining value in the struggle for exist- 

 ence ; in this case the killing out of all the individuals not 

 provided with this specific character has the same re- 

 sult as an actual selection of the possessors of this char- 

 acter. The farther, however, the actual circumstances differ 

 from this case, in so far as a number of characteristics, and 

 not a single one, determines the outcome of survival, by just 

 so much less can the Darwinian explanation be made to 

 cover the situation." 



De Vries sums up a full and careful discussion ' of 

 natural as compared with artificial selection as follows : "In 

 conclusion, summing up all our arguments we may state that 

 there is a broad analogy between breeding-selection in the 

 widest sense of the word, including variety-testing, race- 

 improvement, and the trial of the breeding ability on one 

 side, and natural selection on the other. This analogy, how- 

 ever, points to the importance of the selection between ele- 

 mentary species, and the very subordinate role of intra-specific 

 selection in nature. It strongly supports our view of the 

 origin of species by mutation instead of continuous selec- 

 tion. Or to put it in the terms chosen lately by Mr. Arthur 

 Harris in a friendly criticism of my views : 'Natural selection 

 may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain 

 the arrival of the fittest.' ' 



Finally I desire to add an objection that has real weight 



with me, whatever may be the personal attitude of other 



An increasing naturalists or students to it. And that is, that 



number of work- , . , r , . 



ing biologists a constantly increasing number ot working 



unsatisfied with biologists find themselves, on a basis of their 

 the selection . 



theories, cumulative individual observation and experi- 



ence and "thought, unsatisfied with the explanation of adapta- 

 tion and species-forming offered by the selection theories.. 



