VOU. XVI. (1) ORGANIC SELECTION 65 
ORGANIC SELECTION 
BY 
LLOYD-MORGAN, LL.D., F.RS. 
Delivered Feb. 19th, 1907 
(REPORT BY LECTURER). 
Any theory of selection, as applied to the organic world, 
presupposes over-production. This is seen under different 
forms in the individual and the race. The random be- 
haviour of the human infant, sprawling and kicking, shows 
the over-production of activities; the continuation of 
some of these, and the inhibition of others, gradually con- 
vert the relatively chaotic any-how movements into the 
relatively cosmic thus-wise activities which take a definitely 
assignable place in the universe of orderly and skilled be- 
haviour. The facilitation of habit renders the interplay of 
the contributory co-operating factors easy and natural. 
All skill depends upon the selection of the essential 
“business” part of behaviour ; awkwardness shows the 
presence of other irrelevant activities. Thus we have in 
the individual overproduction of varied movements, the 
selection of those which are relevant to the circumstances 
of life, and the elimination of those which are redundant 
and out of place. So too in thought processes. There 
is an overproduction of ideas scintillating in various direc- 
tions ; there is selection of those which are germane to, 
or in line with, the development of the universe of 
discourse; there is the elimination of all that is ex- 
traneous, redundant, irrelevant, inopportune. The MS. 
notes of the thinker are strewn with out-of-place notions, 
happily born, but ruthlessly strangled. His finished work 
exemplifies the survival of the fit. 
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