38 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



and is therefore a special branch of the doctrine 

 of evolution. This is Darwinism in the historical 

 sense of the word, although Darwin himself was 

 not such an extreme Darwinist as many of his 

 followers have been, for he recognised other con 

 current factors in evolution, whilst laying the 

 greatest stress upon natural selection. 1 



The word Darwinism has various significations, 

 and consequently a great confusion of ideas with 

 regard to it prevails among those who are not 

 specialists, and this confusion is increased by 

 certain works on popular science which are par 

 ticularly obscure in this respect. I am referring 

 especially to France s work on the Further Evolution 

 of Darwinism, which has been published among 

 Breitenbach s collection of writings bearing on 

 Darwinism. The author speaks of the Further 

 Evolution of Darwinism, and yet he reduces the 

 value of the principle of Natural Selection to a 

 minimum, by acknowledging that it is an unim 

 portant subsidiary factor in evolution. It is time 

 for such confusion of ideas to cease. Darwinism 

 as such is Darwin s theory of selection and nothing 

 else. 2 



For the last forty years, in all his popular works 



1 E.g. direct adaptation, correlation, compensation, etc. Cf. Origin of 

 Species, chap. v. 



2 The principle of selection was originally formulated by Wallace (1858), 

 to whom priority is ascribed in this respect. However, as Darwin very 

 soon afterwards (1859) in his Origin of Species worked out the principle 

 for the first time in its universally accepted form, and absolutely indepen 

 dently, the theory of selection received the name of Darwinism. 



