80 NATURAL SELECTION. [introd. 



of one part of the economy, but rather the nett fitness of the 

 whole. 



6. Natural Selection. 



In the view of the phenomena of Variation here outlined, 

 there is nothing which is in any way opposed to the theory of the 

 origin of Species " by means of Natural Selection, or the preserva- 

 tion of favoured races in the struggle for life." But by a full and 

 unwavering belief in the doctrine as originally expressed, we shall 

 in no way be committed to representations of that doctrine made 

 by those who have come after. A very brief study of the facts will 

 suffice to gainsay such statements as, for example, that of Claus, 

 that " it is only natural selection which accumulates those altera- 

 tions, so that they become appreciable to us and constitute a varia- 

 tion which is evident to our senses 1 ." For the crude belief that 

 living beings are plastic conglomerates of miscellaneous attributes, 

 and that order of form or Symmetry have been impressed upon 

 this medley by Selection alone ; and that by Variation any of these 

 attributes may be subtracted or any other attribute added in 

 indefinite proportion, is a fancy which the Study of Variation does 

 not support. 



Here this Introduction must end. As a sketch of a part of the 

 phenomena of Variation, it has no value except in so far as it may 

 lead some to study those phenomena. That the study of Variation 

 is the proper field for the development of biology there can be no 

 doubt. It is scarcely too much to say that the study of Variation 

 bears to the science of Evolution a relation somewhat comparable 

 with that which the study of affinities and reactions bears to the 

 science of chemistry : for we might almost as well seek for the 

 origin of chemical bodies by the comparative study of crystallo- 

 graphy, as for the origin of living bodies by a comparative study of 

 normal forms. 



1 Text-book of Zoology, Sedgwick and Heathcote's English translation, vol. i. 

 p. 148. In the original the passage runs : " erst die naturliche Zuchtwahl hriuft 

 und verstcirkt jene Abweichungen in dem Masse dass sie fur tins wahrnehmbar 

 werden und eine in die Augen fallende Variation bewirken." C. Claus, Lehrb. d. 

 Zool., Ed. 2, 1883, p. 127, and Grundziige der Zoologie, 1880, Bd. i. p. 90. The 

 italics are in the original. 







