THE DARWINIAN THEORY 11 



"This preservation of favourable individual dif- 

 ferences and variations, and the destruction of 

 those which are injurious, I have called Natural 

 Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest" (ibid., 

 p. 63). 



Darwin liked the term "Selection" because it 

 is constantly used in all works on breeding. 

 He quotes an agricultural writer, Youatt, who 

 spoke of the principle of Selection as "that 

 which enables the agriculturalist not only to 

 modify the character of his flock, but to change 

 it altogether" (ibid., p. 23). The same holds 

 good for the improvement of garden plants and 

 field crops; the principle in all cases has been 

 to select for breeding the best animals or plants 

 of each kind, i. e. those which best show the 

 particular characters desired by the breeder 

 or gardener, such as fine wool in sheep, size 

 and flavour in fruit, or beauty of colour in 

 flowers. 



"Man," said Darwin, "selects only for his 

 own good: Nature only for that of the being 

 which she tends" (ibid., p. 65). "If it profit a 

 plant to have its seeds more and more widely 

 disseminated by the wind, I can see no greater 

 difficulty in this being effected through natural 

 selection, than in the cotton-planter increasing 

 and improving by selection the down in the pods 

 on his cotton-trees" (ibid., p. 67). Natural 



