142 HUMANISM 



VIII 



Darwinism can supply no theory of the origin of Variation. 

 Nor does it necessarily lead to the transmutation of species. 

 Nor does it as such involve a growth of adaptation or 

 yield an adequate account of Progress. But more than 

 all this, it does not even give an account of the origin of 

 adaptation. A little reflection will show that a certain 

 amount of adaptation must always be conceived to pre 

 exist before Natural Selection can begin to operate, the 

 amount, namely, which is requisite to enable the organisms 

 to exist, out of which the fit are subsequently to be 

 selected. There must be an existence of the fit before 

 there can be a survival of the fitter, and beings must be 

 capable of existing at all before the question of their 

 living better and surviving can be raised. Hence the 

 initial degree of adaptation needed for the existence of 

 organisms in the world together must always be pre 

 supposed by the Darwinian theory. It must renounce 

 therefore its claim to have accounted for adaptation as 

 such, and so to have wholly superseded the teleological 

 argument. 



Indeed, it may be questioned whether it ever involves 

 any growth of adaptation, or does more than describe the 

 means by which an already existing adaptation is preserved 

 through changes in the conditions of existence. It is clear 

 that a thing must be before it can be selected. And to be, 

 it must always be adapted to the conditions of existence. 

 It cannot be said to grow better adapted, unless it actually 

 manages to exist more copiously, or fully, or easily. But 

 can this be said to be true of the ordinary Darwinian 

 version of the history of organisms ? Is it true that they 

 have grown better adapted, and are better able to survive ? 

 Is not the struggle for existence, now as ever, a struggle 

 for a bare livelihood ? It boots not to suggest that many 

 or most of the beings who now just manage to exist 

 would have lived in comfort in a former age ; for apart 

 from the dubious truth of the assertion, it is clear the 

 fitness of each being must be measured by its ability to 

 exist under the conditions of its own time and place. 



What seems to happen is rather this : we start with 



