SELECTION: ORGANIC AND SOCIAL 193 



progress we are open to the reproach of giving 

 a theory of the survival, but not of the arrival 

 of the fittest. Yet there are often two misunder- 

 standings in the minds of those who play with 

 this reproach, which Darwin met long ago. (a) It 

 is, of course, clear that natural selection is Siva, 

 the Destroyer, 1 and that L'Evolution creatrice is 

 the secret of the organism. Natural selection 

 prunes a growing and changeful tree. Natural 

 selection is a directive, not an originative, factor. 

 The problem of origins is the problem of variation. 

 (b) It must also be noted that, if the fittest have 

 arisen by very gradual steps, by the accumulation 

 of variations small in amount, then the reproach 

 of explaining, not the arrival, but only the survival, 

 loses much of its force. 



(3) With unwearying reiteration the objection 

 is raised that the initial stages of new adaptations 

 will be too minute to have survival value. This 

 difficulty has been often dealt with, and it may 

 suffice here to point out (a) that no one can 

 decide, in an a priori way, how small a change may 

 be of critical moment ; (6) that in the fine texture 

 of the web of life a trivial difference, as Darwin 

 said, may determine survival ; (c) that elimination 

 may be effective though it is not accomplished in 

 a generation ; and (d) that an incipient change 



1 Most biologists admit, what Darwin himself clearly recognised, 

 that in strictness the real process is natural elimination. As an 

 American biologist says: " The fit are not selected it is the unfit 

 who fail to survive, and the fit are merely the survivors. The 

 process is negative throughout. A railway train selects its pas- 

 sengers in the same sense those who come in time get aboard, 

 those who do not, get left." At the same time it must be under- 

 stood that, although the process is negative, the results are in part 

 positive. 



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