CHAPTER XXX 



NATURAL SELECTION 



In the Appendix will be found a chapter of excerpts from Darwin's 

 Origin of Species. In this chapter he offers four objections to his 

 theory and attempts to answer them. These four objections are not 

 by any means all that Darwin foresaw, for he presented in another 

 chapter a discussion of "Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of 

 Natural Selection." Before entering upon a general criticism of 

 Darwinism, it would be advantageous to have before us a brief and 

 pointed summary of Darwin's theory — natural selection — now known 

 technically as "Darwinism." The writer knows of no better short 

 statement of the true content of Darwinism than the following sum- 

 mary by Professor Vernon L. Kellogg. 



SUMMARY OF DARWIN'S NATURAL-SELECTION THEORY 1 



' Darwinism may be defined as a certain rational, causo-mechanical 

 (hence, non-teleologic) explanation of the origin of new species. The 

 Darwinian explanation rests on certain observed facts, and certain 

 inductions from these facts. The observed facts are: (i) the increase 

 by multiplication in geometrical ratio of the individuals in every 

 species, whatever the kind of reproduction which may be peculiar to 

 each species, whether this be simple division, sporulation, budding, 

 parthenogenesis, conjugation and subsequent division, or amphimixis 

 (sexual reproduction); (2) the always apparent slight (to greater) 

 variation in form and function existing among all individuals even 

 though of the same generation or brood; and (3) the transmission, 

 with these inevitable slight variations, by the parent to its offspring 

 of a form and physiology essentially like the parental. The inferred 

 (also partly observed) facts are: (1) a lack of room and food for all 

 these new individuals produced by geometrical multiplication and 

 consequently a competition (active or passive) among those individuals 

 having any ecologic relations to one another, as, for example, among 



1 From V. L. Kellogg, Darwinism To-Day (copyright 1907). Used by per- 

 mission of the publishers, Henry Holt & Company. 



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