go NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



how does it act ? This is, indeed, the crucial question. 

 In what manner and by what processes does Natural 

 Selection (for the sake of argument I assume the 

 existence of such a principle) select the individuals in 

 its formation of a variety ? How does it take them 

 out of the crowd of other individuals, and pair them 

 like with like ? It is quite heside the mark to say 

 that because man can select and isolate, we must 

 believe that Nature, by means of her great principle 

 of Natural Selection, can also do so ; for the conditions 

 under which Natural Selection must operate are such 

 as to prohibit the pairing of similarly varied individuals 

 through successive generations. 



The marriage of two diversely varied individuals 

 produces in their offspring a certain blending of the 

 variations of the parents, in which, as a rule, the 

 inherited variations are seen to be weakened owing 

 to portions of them having been extruded, while 

 some variations seen in one or other of the parents 

 do not appear at all ; and again variations that were 

 not apparent in either of the parents make their 

 appearance in the children, as if they came direct from 

 Nature's laboratory. Some of the offspring inuy 

 inherit more largely from the one parent, and some 

 more largely from the other. These offspring in 

 their turn marry, each with an individual differently 

 varied from itself. In their progeny there occur 

 a further extrusion, and a further weakening of the 

 variations inherited from the grandparents, while half 

 of their variations fire from a new source. Every 



