NATURAL SELECTION CRITICISED. 265 



this can she, too, compel herself to pair according to 

 rule? 



The conclusion of reflection here will be that there is 

 no conceivable check to the indiscriminate intercourse of 

 nature unless that of force. The strongest may exclude 

 the rest. It is not so certain, however, that " the good 

 old rule/' " the simple plan," is, really, the norm of nature. 

 It is not so that we find the lower animals at our side. 



" Man adapts living beings to his wants he may le 

 said to make the wool of one sheep good for carpets, 

 and another for cloth," etc. But Mr. Darwin could not 

 find anything that might correspond to these, his own 

 words, in nature at all events at the first look. " How 

 selection could be applied to organisms living in a state 

 of nature remained for some time," he says, " a mystery 

 to me." The exact " some time," we are told, was " fifteen 

 months." After fifteen months of inquiry as above, he 

 happens to read Malthus on Population, and a way is 

 opened to him. 



(4.) Malthus would prove that, left to themselves, or 

 as is the nature of each, Population outruns Production. 

 If the one, consequently, remains unchecked, at the same 

 time that by no possibility can the other be increased, 

 then the balance between both can be kept even only 

 by an expanding death list. That is the Struggle for 

 existence. The weakest fall. 



Mr. Darwin was well prepared, he avows, 1 to appreciate 

 this struggle " from long-continued observation of the 

 habits of animals and plants;" and it at once struck 

 him "that under these circumstances favourable varia- 

 tions would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones 

 to be destroyed ; the result would be the formation of 

 new species." Now, as we already know, the theory of 

 natural selection remained complete for long under these 

 1 See back to pp. 198, 199. 



