26 NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan., 1896. 



elusion that stands in interesting antithesis to Geddes' description of 

 evolution as " a materialised ethical process." 



18. And if it be said that attempts made to explain the 'body,' 

 the colony, the pair, the mammal, the family, the gentleman, by 

 recognising 'altruism ' and 'love,' kinship and sociality, etc., as facts 

 of life — not less inventive than 'egoism' and 'hunger,' competition 

 and struggle — are mere interpretations, one is driven to ask if more 

 can be said of the elimination theory. Has not Weismann admitted 

 that the operation of natural selection is in no case rigidly 

 demonstrable ? Not that one would disbelieve in it on that account ! 



19. But if it should be said that all this is a tilt against a 

 windmill, and that all are agreed that progress depends on much 

 more than a squabble around the platter ; that the struggle for 

 existence is far more than an internecine struggle at the margin of 

 subsistence ; that it includes all the multitudinous efforts for self and 

 others between the poles of love and hunger; that it comprises all the 

 endeavours of mate for mate, of parent for offspring, of kin for kin ; 

 that love and life are factors in progress as well as pain and 

 death ; that existence for many an animal means the well-being of a 

 socially-bound or kin-bound organism in a social milieu ; that egoism 

 is not satisfied until it becomes altruistic — then we are all agreed, but 

 the colour of the picture has changed. 



J. Arthur Thomson. 



