igo COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



improves soup, but it would be a fool's enterprise to set 

 about making soup from salt. 







IV 



Before we go on to test the applicability of natural 

 selection to human affairs we may do well to ask whether, 

 in the interpretation of physical nature, " natural selec- 

 tion " is not invoked in different senses. "We are haunted 

 by ambiguity. " Darwinism " is an ambiguous expres- 

 sion. The central contribution of Darwin to evolu- 

 tionary theory was the doctrine of natural selection; 

 yet that by itself is hyper-Darwinism ; in the master's 

 hands Darwinism means natural selection plus use in- 

 heritance plus sexual selection ; these three, at any 

 rate. So, when natural selection is used as a synonym 

 for Darwinism, it must prove most ambiguous. May 

 we take for granted that variation is non-telic and yet 

 constitutes new species ? Let us call this Natural Selec- 

 tion A. Are we to regard natural selection merely as a 

 force that prevents relapse by weeding out possible evil 

 specimens ? Let us call this Natural Selection B. Or are 

 we to regard it as a positive source of progress when in 

 alliance with other evolutionary forces (telic variation, 

 use-inheritance, sexual selection, a more general working 

 of intelligence ; all these are candidates for the position) 

 secondary to them, and accelerating their operation ? * 

 Let us call this Natural Selection C. Or, recurring to 

 our first point (letter A), are we to leave the question 



1 The intelligent reader will easily perceive that the analysis in the 

 text is far from being final. Is A everything ? That is hyper-Darwinism. 

 Is A something but not everything ? That view might be held. Is A 

 a logical possibility in some departments rather unlikely to be a fact in 

 any ? That is the view argued in these pages, and so forth. I trust, 

 however, that all the distinctions have been taken which are necessary 

 for our argument in addressing intelligent readers. 



