1909] Ofi the World of Life. 427 



copse and garden, was next pointed out. The facts were shown to 

 involve speciahties of structure, agiUtv of motions, and acuteness of 

 the senses, which could only have been attained by the preservation 

 of each successive slight variation of a beneficial character throughout 

 geological time ; while the emotions of parental love must also have 

 been continuously increased, this being the great motive power of 

 the strenuous activity exhil)ited by these charming little creatures. 



Lord Salislmry on Natural SpJection. 



As illustrating the strange and almost incredible misconceptions 

 prevailing as to the mode of action of natural selection, the lecturer 

 quoted the following passage from the late Lord Salisbury's presiden- 

 tial address to the British Association at Oxford in 1894. After 

 describing how the diverse races of domestic animals have been pro- 

 duced by artificial selection. Lord Salisbury continued thus : — 



" But in natural selection, who is to supply the breeder's place ? 

 Unless the crossing is properly arranged the new breed will never 

 come into being. What is to secure that the two individuals of oppo- 

 site sexes in the primaeval forest, who have been both accidentally 

 blessed with the same advantageous variation, shall meet, and trans- 

 mit by inheritance that variation to their successors ? LTnless this 

 step is made good the modification will never get a start ; and yet 

 there is nothing to ensure that step but pure chance. The law of 

 chance takes the place of the cattle-breeder or the pigeon-fancier. The 

 biologists do well to ask for an immeasurable expanse of time, if the 

 occasional meetings of advantageously varied couples, from age to age, 

 are to provide the pedigree of modifications which unite us to our 

 ancestors, the jelly-fish." 



Here we have the extraordinary misconception presented to a 

 scientific audience as actual fact, that advantageous variations occur 

 singly, at long intervals, and remote from each other ; each statement 

 being, as is well known, the absolute reverse of what is really the case. 

 It totally ignores the fact, tiiat every abundant species consists of tens 

 or hundreds of millions of individuals, and that as regards any faculty 

 or quality whatever, this vast host may be divided into two portions 

 — the less and the more adapted — not very unequal in amount. It 

 f ollow^s that at any given time, in any given country, the advantageous 

 variations always present are not to be counted by ones and twos, as 

 stated by Lord Salisbury, but by scores of millions ; and not in indi- 

 viduals widely apart from each other, but constituting in every locality 

 or country somewhere about one half of the whole population of the 

 species. 



The facts of nature being what they are, it is impossible to imagine 

 any slow change of environment to which the more populous species 

 would not become automatically adjusted under the laws of multipli- 



