Claypole.] l-'^: [April 1, 



So far, therefore, is variation from being uniformly beneficial in its 

 results to the variable or to the variant organism, that in not a few cases 

 that come under our observation it is positively hurtful or even fatal. 

 And these must be only a few out of all that actually occur, inasmuch as 

 they are necessarily taken for the most part, indeed almost entirely, from 

 animals and plants in a condition of domestication. 



In domestication also a new and almost omnipotent factor entfers the 

 problem — human selection. Now if this beneficial tendency in variation 

 had any existence, it might be expected to show some sign of its action in 

 species under human control. Yet here no trace of it can be detected. 

 When a cattle-breeder attempts to develop certain features it would be 

 evidently beneficial that the stock should vary in the required direction, 

 for failure to do so is quickly fatal. Yet immense care and pains, and 

 the constant elimination of faulty individuals are requisite to obtain suc- 

 cess in the endeavor. So with plants. In the attempt to establish a new 

 variety of cabbage or lettuce, years of work are essential and thousands 

 of "rogues " must be pulled from the seed-bed and destroyed before the 

 strain desired attains persistence and perpetuity. 



IV. 



Beneficial Variation and Natural Selection inconsistent. 



It is further worthy of remark that supporters of the theory of evolu- 

 tion alluded to in the extracts given above can find no use in their system 

 for the subsidiary doctrine of natural selection. Maintaining a beneficial 

 tendency in all variation guiding it in a channel favorable to the variant, 

 they cannot logically admit the directive influence of selection. All vari- 

 ation being favorable, there can be no forms to be rejected. Yet one at 

 least of the writers quoted is evidently an adherent to the doctrine and 

 admits that its action has much influence in determining the surviving in- 

 dividuals. Were directive beneficial variation a fact, all variates must be 

 equally well adapted to their environment though ditferent from each 

 other. So evident is this that proof is needless. Yet Prof. Gray himself 

 appeals to the action of natural selection in his "Darwiniana," where 

 with a beautiful metaphor he writes : 



"Natural selection is not the wind which propels the vessel, but the 

 rudder which by friction — now on this side and now on that — shapes the 

 course. The rudder acts while the vessel is in motion, effects nothing 

 when it is at rest. Variation answers to the wind." 



Directive beneficial variation and natural selection are logical contradic- 

 tories, and cannot both exist. The former it real must be universal. But 

 I have shown that it is not so. Hence every evolutionist who adopts the 

 theory of natural selection must abandon that of beneficial variation, and 

 vice versa every adherent to the theory of beneficial variation is unable to 

 admit the agency of natural selection in any ot its forms. 



