Mr. E. V. Neale on Typical Selection. tM 



themselves at all, if they retained that mutual prolificness character- 

 istic of all the varieties upon which we can experimentalize. 



Able and ingenious as is Mr. Darwin's argument to show that 

 selection, by the " struggle for existence," is possible, he seems to me, 

 throughout the whole of it, to confuse two distinct conceptions, 

 namely, the effect of peculiarities of structure in giving one plant or 

 animal an advantage over another, and the preservation of those 

 peculiarities. His reasoning would be conclusive if applied to a 

 state of things where each diflferent variety was distinguished by an 

 exclusive disposition to produce its own kind, as we actually find 

 to be the case with species ; but he applies it to a state of things 

 where, by his own hypothesis, he has swept away the ground of his 

 argument. If one variety of wading birds possessed longer bills than 

 another, this "advantage" might lead to the ultimate annihilation of 

 the short-bills, through the more rapid multiplication of the long, if 

 a long-billed parent always produced a long -billed offspring. But if 

 the long-bills and the short live side by side, as they must do 

 if they are to struggle for existence, and possess that aptness and 

 disposition for interbreeding which all known varieties are experi- 

 mentally found to possess, and the laws of interbreeding be supposed 

 to be what they now are, long-bills and short would soon merge into 

 one race of medium-billed birds, between whom the struggle for ex- 

 istence would be reduced to one of individual strength. In con- 

 nexion with this topic, the fact insisted upon by Mr. Darwin must 

 be borne in mind, that intercrossing between varieties is conducive to 

 fertility, as on the other hand breeding in and in is well known to 

 cause unhealthiness, if not sterility. On the whole, then, I conclude 

 that the permanent distinction of type which Mr. Darwin assumes to 

 result as a consequence from the struggle for existence, is really a 

 necessary condition, in order that this struggle may assume the form 

 of a contest of races. 



Illustrations of this position might be endlessly multiplied. I will 

 adduce one only, drawn from the instance of the humble-bee and the 

 honey-bee, the origin of whose architectural powers is the subject of 

 a most interesting and ingenious discussion in Mr. Darwin's work. 

 He adduces, as the "advantage" of the honey-bee, and therefore 

 the constitutive principle of its peculiarities, the economy of wax in 

 the constructiou of its cells when compared with the round, imper- 

 fectly connected cells of the humble-bee ; for thus, in seasons when 

 honey was scarce, a saving in food might result. But the humble- 

 bee still raises her lowly dwellings along side of the palatial store- 

 houses of her insect neighbour. Whatever the vicissitudes of the 

 seasons may have been since she first appeared on the earth. Death 

 has not swept her away ; she survives now. What probable ground, 

 then, is there for assuming that she was not present when Mr. Darwin's 

 incipient honey-bee began its work, to destroy by intercrosses the 

 peculiarities of her rival, and bring down its "advantages" to the 

 common level 1 



It is unnecessary to dwell upon the complete removal of this diffi- 

 culty by the supposition of "typical selection." But more notice 



