SELECTION 141 



tion which require notice here. The first is that a 

 large number of individuals are destroyed by acci- 

 dental circumstances, not in any way due to non- 

 inheritance of a beneficial character. The usual 

 example given is the destruction of the eggs of 

 fishes before they are hatched. This, however, is 

 part of the competition between the mothers and not 

 between the young. Those mothers which produce 

 the fewest ova will not be represented in the future, 

 and so the species will tend to become more and 

 more prolific. Also the destruction of the eggs does 

 no harm to the next generation, for those that are 

 left will be an average of the whole, and will, when 

 hatched, commence to compete with each other. 

 The destruction of large numbers by hap-hazard 

 causes may delay the operation of natural selection, 

 but it does not prevent it. 



The second objection is that physicists have 

 shewn that the earth has not existed long enough 

 to allow of the process of development by the Dar- 

 winian theory, as that process was necessarily a 

 very slow one. This also is a misconception of 

 Darwinism. The objection is a mild form of the 

 very venerable one which Cuvier brought against the 

 theory of Lamarck in the beginning of the century, 

 and which is mentioned in the first of these lectures. 

 The answer is that if organic development has been 

 slow during the last three or four thousand years, 

 so also has been the geological development. As 

 the earth has, as a matter of fact, existed long 

 enough for the geological evolution to work out, so 

 also must it have existed long enough for the organic 



