96 DARWINISM TO-DAY. 



what species survive, but how species originate; no matter 

 whether they are going to become victorious or not. 



"After a species has appeared it will surely be admitted by 

 every one, that forms that can survive will survive ! If 

 Darwin's theory meant only this to those who adopted it, 

 is it not surprising that such a truism should have been 

 hailed as a great discovery? Was not the theory heralded 

 because it seemed to explain how new species arose ? What 

 shall we say then when we find a situation like that existing 

 at the present time, when we are told that after all the only 

 difference between Darwin's theory of natural selection and 

 the theory of the survival of definite variations is that in the 

 one case fluctuating variations are selected, and in the other 

 mutations, and that in both cases natural selection is the 

 key to the evolutionary process ! Is not the 'origin of 

 species' still the real point at issue? 



"I yield to no one in admiration for what Darwin has done 

 in behalf of the biological sciences, for he succeeded, where 

 the great French zoologists failed, in establishing the prin- 

 ciple of evolution. Furthermore no other hypothesis, that 

 has as yet been proposed, accounts so well for the wide- 

 spread occurrence of adaptation of organisms to the environ- 

 ment as does the principle of natural selection. But appre- 

 ciation of Darwin's claims in these directions need not blind 

 us to the insufficiency of the theory of natural selection to 

 account for the origin of species; nor to the fact that his 

 followers have been especially concerned in propounding 

 and making application of this side of the theory. They 

 have shown little interest in selection as the great conserv- 

 ing factor of evolution, and the reason for this is not far 

 to seek, because of the much greater importance that they 

 have attributed to natural selection as a creative factor in 

 building up individual differences into specific characters." 



