37 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



" The answer may seem surprising to some, but it is 

 none the less true, that ' Natural Selection ' is simply 

 nothing. It is an apparently positive name for a 

 really negative effect, and is therefore an eminently 

 misleading term. By 'Natural Selection' is meant 

 the result of all the destructive agencies of Nature, 

 destructive to individuals and to races by destroying 

 their lives or their powers of propagation. Evidently, 

 the cause of the distinction of species (supposing such 

 distinction to be brought about in natural generation) 

 must lie that which causes variation, and variation in one 

 determinate direction in at least several individuals 

 simultaneously" I should like to have added here the 

 words " and during many successive generations," but 

 they will go very sufficiently without saying. 



" At the same time," continues Professor Mivart, " it 

 is freely conceded that the destructive agencies in 

 nature do succeed in preventing the perpetuation of 

 monstrous, abortive, and feeble attempts at the per- 

 formance of the evolutionary process, that they rapidly 

 remove antecedent forms when new ones are evolved 

 more in harmony with surrounding conditions, and that 

 their action results in the formation of new characters 

 when these have once attained sufficient completeness 

 to be of real utility to their possessor. 



" Continued reflection, and five years further ponder- 

 ing over the problems of specific origin have more and 

 more convinced me that the conception, that the 

 origin of all species ' man included ' is due simply to 

 conditions which are (to use Mr. Darwin's own words) 

 ' strictly accidental,' is a conception utterly irrational." 



