1 86 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



emphasis he throws upon different features in his 

 system, or in the wider suggestions that grow out of his 

 statements of biological doctrine. Now, Darwin's lan- 

 guage seems to attribute greater scope to chance than 

 is allowed to it by the deliberate processes of his think- 

 ing. The name natural selection seems to imply that 

 progress is due, though negatively and indirectly, to the 

 environment alone. Organisms evolve, it would seem, 

 because of a foreign influence, forcing advance on the 

 reluctant materials. The whole cause of progress lies 

 in the selecting environment, not in the varying organ- 

 ism ; and selection proceeds blindly by destruction of the 

 unfit. Here again we have the spirit of the doctrine 

 of chance. We see it partly in the assumption that 

 organism and environment have nothing to do with 

 each other, partly in the assertion that (if not the 

 existence of life ; to take the same view on that point 

 involves a further stretch of the spirit of materialism ; 

 yet) all advances in life are due to conditions resident 

 in the environment, operating outside and apart from 

 the purposeful processes of the living creature. To say 

 that " natural selection " causes this or that is almost 

 equivalent to saying that " casual coexistence " creates 

 this or that. One is tempted to take up the very 

 opposite position, and assign whatever is new in evolu- 

 tion, even according to Darwin's own analysis, to the 

 varying organism, and not to the selecting environment. 

 "Natural selection" seems a fair enough name for the 

 evolutionary process (as conceived by Darwin), so far as 

 that to which it applies can be regarded as one thing 

 evolving continuously throughout the process. Thus 

 life may be said to differentiate itself into new and 

 finer forms " by natural selection." But natural selec- 

 tion can do no more. It cannot " explain " how matter 



