REVIEWS 



No Struggle for Existence: No Natural Selection. A critical examination of 

 the fundamental principles of the Darwinian theory. By GEORGE Paulin. 

 [Pp. xx + 261.] (Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark, 1908. Price $s.) 



We can infer from the mere title of this book that the author has not only 

 undertaken a critical examination of the Darwinian theory, but has established 

 its inaccuracy ; and from the paper wrapper of the book we learn that he "proves 

 that Nature has made special provision for eliminating all excess of reproduction 

 so as to avert a Darwinian struggle, and that individual qualities or variations 

 play no part in her elimination. His second chapter is devoted to a demonstration 

 that Nature does not make use of individual variations to originate new forms. 

 The second book, dealing with the Law of Population, shows that neither Mal- 

 thusian nor Darwinian principles affect, in any wise, the movements of population." 

 The italics are ours, and the italicised words "prove" only the author's self- 

 confidence. On looking through the twenty pages of preface we find nothing 

 but repetitions of the same statements. He states that he has been a lifelong 

 evolutionist, but that he has now altered his previous convictions ; that he believes 

 in a moral basis to the universe, and is therefore convinced that " Darwin's con- 

 ception of the cruelty of Nature to her sentient offspring is wholly mistaken." 

 Darwin's theory, he says, is " an extraordinary concatenation of weird concepts 

 of sins against logic and common sense, of criminal violations of Nature's known 

 laws, and of audacious and indefensible assertions. My investigation proved it to 

 be so — a rotten tenement tottering in its every joint, a ship tumbling helplessly on 

 the brine, leaking at every plank." He says that he wishes to " counteract, in 

 short, that gross and degrading materialism which Darwin has gone far to make 

 the recognised stamp of present-day scientific thought." But even after twenty 

 pages of preface, and twenty more pages of the first chapter of the book, we still 

 fail to ascertain the nature of this remarkable " proof." We then learn that there 

 is no struggle for existence amongst animals, because of the destruction of their 

 young offspring by the ravenous males ! When the population becomes crowded, 

 the females cannot hide their young sufficiently easily from their unnatural mates ; 

 when, however, the population becomes thinner, they succeed in doing so. Thus 

 the numbers of animals are maintained by Nature always at about the same level. 

 Thus also there is no struggle for existence, and consequently no natural selection 

 on the principles enunciated by Darwin. The author does not, apparently and 

 fortunately, extend this explanation to the cases where a human population 

 remains fixed ; but here he introduces another hypothesis, to the effect that the 

 birth-rate declines when the food supply does so. The evidence which he adduces 

 for both these arguments is of the slenderest nature ; but worse than that, he 

 seems to have failed to understand Darwin's meaning. He takes Darwin's meta- 

 phorical expression "struggle for existence" in a literal sense, and seems to 

 imagine that animals do nothing but fight each other for their food. Cases such 

 as those of innumerable insects, of which the population remains limited though 



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