122 / LIONEL TAYLER [august 



certain number of elementary properties of life which afford sufficient 

 material to work with. 



Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection. 



Keeping constantly in view the leading principles of the selection 

 theory I believe it will be found that the facts adduced by the more 

 scientific opponents of this theory can, when the importance of the 

 corollary put forward by Lloyd Morgan, and after him by Weismann, 

 is considered, be easily accounted for, and that as they then fall into 

 line with its legitimate deductions increase the strength of the theory 

 by showing it to be a more and not less important principle than 

 Darwin and even Wallace were led to believe. 



1. Variations are definite and not indefinite in nature. — This 

 objection has already been met in the preceding part of this article, 

 and as selection is able to explain the indefinite variability which 

 arises from variable conditions, crossing, etc., and the constancy of type 

 from rational inbreeding, it is in more complete accord with facts 

 than any mainly Lamarckian or Orthogenetic theory. 



2. That Natural Selection cannot be the cause of New Characters 

 . — The alternative must be present before the selection can commence. 

 If any character or variation can be shown to have been produced 

 which differs qualitatively, not merely quantitatively, from its parental 

 forms, which is not to be explained by incomplete development, atavism, 

 or degeneration ; if any variation can be shown to arise, which has 

 not some pre-existing though less or more differentiated counterpart, 

 it would form an objection of considerable magnitude. But as no 

 case of the kind has been put forward which Neo-Darwinians have 

 felt bound from the strength of the case to accept, this objection may 

 be disregarded until such case arises. 



3. The difficulty of the chance variation appearing at the right 

 moment is largely met by the fact that selection tends to induce 

 determinate variability ; this objection is still further weakened by the 

 fact that even relatively rapid changes in nature are, as a rule, long in 

 proportion to the life of the individual, and afford considerable oppor- 

 tunities for selection working through somatic accommodations and 

 later coincident germinal variability to produce the required change. 



4. That the earliest forms of variations must have been too small 

 and insignificant in character to be of selectional value. — This objection 

 appears to me to be one of the most weighty of all the objections 

 which have been raised to the selectional hypothesis, and it is further 

 an extremely difficult objection to satisfactorily reply to ; first, be- 

 cause it is almost impossible to say in what form of organism the 

 earliest variations appeared, and without this no judgment on the 

 value of any small variation can be of use ; secondly, it is equally 

 essential to know the kind of environment which such an organism 



