CHAPTER XL 



CRITICISM OF NATURAL SELECTION CONTINUED. 



So much for (a) the variation. We come now to (b) 

 the natural selection as such. 



To this part of the process Mr. Darwin, as we saw, 

 though not altogether consciously (at least in connection), 

 gave two forms. Variation was continued into new 

 species : Either, first, as successful in the struggle for 

 existence ; Or, second, as naturally divergent into a new 

 place (character, relation, role). In either form we are 

 to see the process as the selection on the part of nature 

 of the variation of the organism that is so varied 

 into an application, a function, a purpose, a use, that is 

 necessarily correspondently varied. 



The whole question, then, is of the truth of this. Can 

 the subjects of such variations as are daily exemplified 

 around us, and as we see spontaneously to happen, be 

 really conceived to emerge into new species ? Can such 

 variations as we are supposed actually to see ever con- 

 ceivably determine the subjects of them into new 

 species ? 



Mr. Darwin finds that he must make strong play 

 with the idea of gradation here. " For the life of me, 

 1 cannot see," he says (ii. 304), " any difficulty in natural 

 selection producing the most exquisite structure, if such 

 structure can be arrived at by gradation." If but can 



