FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS 425 



Supposed Action of Animal Intelligence. 



The following passage briefly summarises Mr. Cope's 

 position : " Intelligence is a conservative principle, and 

 will always direct effort and use into lines which ^vill be 

 beneficial to its possessor. Here we have the source of the 

 fittest, i.e. addition of parts by increase and location of 

 growth-force, directed by the influence of various kinds of 

 compulsion in the lower, and intelligent option among higher 

 animals. Thus intelligent choice, taking advantage of the 

 successive evolution of physical conditions, may be regarded 

 as the originator of the fittest^ while natural selection is the 

 tribunal to which all results of accelerated gi^owth are sub- 

 mitted. This preserves or destroys them, and determines the 

 new points of departure on which accelerated growth shall 

 build."! 



This notion of " intelligence " — the intelligence of the 

 animal itself — determining its oa^ti variation, is so evidently a 

 very partial theory, inapplicable to the whole vegetable king- 

 dom, and almost so to all the lower forms of animals, amongst 

 which, nevertheless, there is the very same adaptation and 

 co-ordination of j^arts and functions as among the highest, that 

 it is strange to see it put forward ^vith such confidence as 

 necessary for the completion of Darwin's theory. If "the 

 various kinds of compiUsion " — by which are apparently meant 

 the laws of variation, growth, and reproduction, the struggle 

 for existence, and the actions necessary to preserve life under 

 the conditions of the animal's environment — are sufl&cient to 

 have developed the varied forms of the lower animals and of 

 plants, we can see no reason why the same " compulsion *' 

 should not have carried on the development of the higher 

 animals also. The action of this " intelligent option " is alto- 

 gether unproved ; while the acknowledgment that natural 

 selection is the tribunal which either preserves or destroys the 

 variations submitted to it, seems c^uite inconsistent with the 

 statement that intelligent choice is the "orginator of the 

 fittest," since whatever is really "the fittest" can never be 

 destroyed by natural selection, which is but another name for 

 the survival of the fittest. If " the fittest " is always definitely 

 ^ Origin of the Fittest, p. 40. 



