HLrd 



* it folio 



Nov. 29, 1888] 



NATURE 



103 



s the pupils. If the learner cannot learn in the right way, 

 it follows that the teacher cannot teach in the right way. He 

 necessarily becomes an accomplice in the pressure, the hurry, the 

 preparation for a special moment, the skilful handling of a sub- 

 ject so that a sort of examiner's essence may be extracted from 

 it, and nothing more. Just as the pupil must treat many great 

 subjects in an unworthy manner, not giving himself up wholly 

 and devotedly to them, not following out the many question- 

 ings which such subjects naturally aroiise in minds which have 

 t lost their freshness and originality, not seeking the higher 

 Is — love of knowledge and the power of understanding this 

 J which we all have to live, — but engrossed in what, from the 

 point of view of self-cultivation, are the lower ends, — '.he desire 

 of an intellectual triumph, and perhaps of the position which 

 may reward the triumph, — so must the teacher cj-operate hand 

 in hand and step by step in all these inferior motives and in- 

 ferior uses of a great vocation. Indeed, he will be fortunate if 

 after some years of such work he resist the cynical influence 

 which belongs to the system, and do not begin to believe that 

 both young men and their teachers were specially designed for 

 contests in intellectual cockpits, and that in no other way could 

 ■ young be induced to forego the pleasures and attractions 

 life at twenty. I have keen recollections of an old keeper, 

 ;.j used greatly to impress my schoolboy's mind by the intense 

 conviction that he had, that a cock would not have known how 

 to use its spurs, a pike would not have been ble>sed with its 

 appetite for a silvered spoon, and a fox with its scent, if some 

 ulterior intentions had not existed somewhere on behalf of 

 English sportsmen. Had he only understood our educational 

 ■••-•em, perhaps he would as stoutly have maintained that our 

 ng men were born to be examined, and their seniors to 

 mine them. AUBERON HERBERT. 



I »ld House, RingwooJ, November 18. 



Mr. Dyer on Physiological Selection. 



If the strength of a theory may be measured by the weakness 

 of criticism, I have good reason to be hopeful for the future of 

 " Physiological Selection." On this account I am glad that 

 Mr. Dyer has sought to justify his remarks by giving his reasons 

 for them, although I regret what appears to me the needless 

 asperity of his tone. However, disregarding the personalities 

 in which he has clothed his reply, 1 will endeavour to show that 

 the reply itself is about as unfortunate as a reply could well be. 



Taking his points seriatim, I am in no way responsible for 

 the notices of my paper which appeared in the Tim s or in any 

 other periodical, except, of course, those which I have published 

 with my own signature. But, although not responsible for what 

 the newspapers said, I should have corrected any " absurd mis- 

 representation," had I met with such. The passage, however, 

 which Mr. Dyer now quotes from the Times of more than two 

 years ago (and which, I presume, is correctly quoted) does not 

 appear to me a misrepresentation at all. On the contrary, I 

 f' it her from it that the writer must have perfectly well under- 

 d my paper. What he states is that, in my view, natural 

 ction is a theor}' of the origin of adaptations " rather'' than 

 ^ ilieory of the origin of species. Mr. Dyer appears to regard 

 this as identical with his own statement — viz. that in my view 

 natural selection is not in any sense a theory of species, but 

 "('m/v of adaptations." In other words, the former statement 

 correctly imputes to me the opinion that Mr. Darwin's theory is 

 friinarily a theory of adaptations wherever these occur, and, 

 consequently, also a theory of species in every case where species 

 differ from one another in respect of adaptive characters ; while 

 the latter atTirms unequivocally that in my opinion "specific 

 differences are not adaptive," and, consequently, that Mr. 

 Darwin's theory is a theory of adaptations to the total ex- 

 clusion of species — for an explanation of the origin of 

 which "it follows thit we must look to Mr. Romanes hijiself." 

 Now I must say that if Mr. Dyer cannot see the distinction 

 between these two statements, I may well cease to regret on 

 my own account the difficulty which he says he experiences in 

 understanding my papers. 



But although it do^s not appear that the Tim s misunderstood 

 me in this matter, it is quite true that Mr. Wallace did ; and 

 Boon after my paper was published, he misrepresented me in 

 exactly the same way as Mr. Dyer misrepresents me now. 

 But I immediately and most emphatically repudiated this 

 astonishing interpretation at the time, in a general answer to 



criticisms which was published in the Nineteenth Century for 

 January 1887. Therefore, whatever Mr. Dyer may think about 

 the reiterated contradiction which I gavj in these columns a 

 week or two ago, he is plainly and entirely in the wrong where 

 he refers to it as "a denial that comes rather late in the day." 

 He appears to have adopted Mr. Wallace's interpretation with- 

 out deeming it worth his while to glance at my reply, before 

 republishing to his audience at Bath a misrepresentation which I 

 had long ago repudiated with all the resources of the English 

 language that I could command. 



Why, indeed, any such "denial" on my part should ever 

 have been required has always been to me unintelligible. The 

 original paper itself over and over again insists that I do not at 

 all doubt the important (though, as Darwin says, "not ex- 

 elusive ") part which natural selection has played in the origina- 

 tion of species. Some of these passages I republished in my 

 last letter (October 25), and thus it is for your readers to judge 

 whether the smallest degree of ambiguity attaches to them. Bet, 

 again ignoring th^se passages, even as now re-quoted, italicized, 

 and especially addressed to himself, Mr. Dyer seeks to justify what 

 I have now so often had to designate as this "absurd " render- 

 ing of my views, by pointing out that in my paper one of the 

 sections is headed "Natural Selection not a Theory of the 

 Origin of Species." This is the only justification that he 

 attempts. Let us see what it is worth. 



I readily acknowledge that, to have been quite accurate, the 

 heading of this section ought to have been "Natural Se- 

 lection not strictly speaking a Theory of the Origin of Species." 

 But I submit that the oversight of here leaving out the words 

 "strictly speaking" (which are elsewhere supplied), was an 

 oversight which could not possibly have misled any reader as 

 to my meaning — unless, of course, he confined himself to reading 

 only the headings of my sections. For it was in the short sectio i 

 thus headed that the very passages occur which I selected from 

 my whole paper to quote in my last letter, as furnishing "direct 

 contradiction " to Mr. Dyer's statement. In other words, fjllow- 

 ing immediately and repeatedly upon the heading in question, 

 there are passages which carefully and unequivccalty guard 

 against the very imputation which Mr. Dyer now seeks to force 

 upon me. As a critic of my writings, therefore, he is here 

 trebly in the wrong. First, because his statement of my views 

 admits of being flatly falsified by my original paper itself ; ' 

 secondly, because he ignores all that 1 have since written upon 

 the same subject ; and thirdly, because he now fails to withdraw 

 what I have told him is a travesty of my meaning. 



But even this is not all. For Mr. Dyer goes on to siy : — 

 "Everybody knows that the idea of evolution of organic 

 Nature existed in men's minds long before Mr. Darwin. He 

 did not originate it ; what he did originate was the theory 

 that ' natural selection ' is the mechanical means by which 

 that evolution has been brought about. Mr. Romanes says 

 roundly that it is not, or words have ceased to have mean- 

 ing." Now, if, without divorcing them from their immedicUe 

 context, Mr. Dyer will be considerate enough to point to 

 any words v/hich I have ever writen or ever spoken from 

 which such an interpretation as this can, by any amount of 

 twisting, be extracted, I shall indeed begin to believe that words 

 have so far ceased to convey a meaning of any kind as to be 

 practically useless for purposes of expression. Because I have 

 insisted that, in the great drama of "evolution," natural selec- 

 tion has been cveryivhere the one great agent in the causing of 

 adaptations ; because I have said that, on this account, we 

 should take much too narrow a view of so vast an agency were 

 we to regard it as concerned only in the origin of "species," or 

 as having to do only with such adaptations as happen to be of 

 but specific value ; because I have advocated a larger and more 

 correct view of the stupendous importance of this " mechanxal 

 means" by which all "evolution in organic Nature h.is been 

 brought about, with the exception only (as I say in my paper) 

 "of mutual sterility and trivial details of structure, form, and 

 colour," which alone I attribute to the "supplementary factor" 

 of physiological selection, — because I have said all these things, 

 Mr, Dyer now tells me that I have roundly denied the agency 

 of natural selection altogether ! After this, I can only feel that 



' For instance :—" Let me not be misunderstood. Insaying that the theory 

 of natural selection is not, properly speaking, a theory of the origin of] species, 

 I do not mean to say that the the ,ry has ha J no part at all in explaining such 

 origin. Any such statement would be in the last degree ab.surd. g What I 

 mean to say is that the theory is one which explains the origin and con- 

 servation o. ad.iptations. whether structural or instinctive, and whether tlvese 

 occur in species, genera, fanilie-, orders, or cl.isses." 



