575.4 166 [September 
II 
Does Natural Selection play any part in the Origin 
of Species among Plants ? 
NTRODUCTION. — The objects of the present paper are to 
answer this question in the negative, and to prove that natural 
selection is a superfluous factor as an aid in the origination of new 
varietal characters; though it has much to do with the “ survival 
of the fittest ” in “ the struggle for existence ” among beings in any 
particular locality. It is, of course, the Darwinian conception that 
these factors are somehow concerned in the origin of species; but I 
would maintain that they must be kept totally distinct from it. 
Darwin, in truth, insisted upon this fact himself; that whatever the 
causes or origins of variations might be, such were questions with 
which natural selection had nothing whatever to do. His words 
are :—‘‘ The direct action of the conditions of life . . . is a totally 
distinct consideration from the effects of natural selection . . . [it] 
has no relation whatever to the primary cause of any modification 
of structure.”! What I wish to show is that sufficient variations 
to constitute a variety are always the result of a direct or indirect 
response to the “ definite action” of a new environment; indeed 
many, if not all the organisms, of whatever kind they may be, which 
are subjected to it, often vary more or less in a like manner? It 
will then be seen at once that not only are there no “ indefinite 
variations ” for natural selection to deal with, but as a consequence 
its raison d@étre, as an aid in the origin of species is gone; and it 
can take no part in the origination of varieties. 
I wish also to point out that Darwin’s theory of natural 
selection rests entirely upon a series of @ priori assumptions or 
deductions, which have never been verified; nor, indeed, do they 
seem capable of verification. 
Definition of a Species.—In order to be clear, it is desirable 
to state precisely what one understands by the term “ Species.” 
According to the method pursued by systematic botanists in 
describing plants, a species may be defined as follows :—*“ Any 
particular species of a genus is known by a collection of characters 
taken from any or all parts of the plant. These characters are, or 
1 “* Animals and Plants under Domestication,” vol. ii., p. 272. 
* Hence arises the facies characteristic of aquatic, desert, alpine, and other plants ; 
as I have described in my work—‘‘ The Origin of Plant Structures.” 
