506 EDUCATION 



astronomy. 1 If mathematics and physics are sciences, his work 

 also was scientific, for he formulated a hypothesis which was 

 capable of being tested. But this arranging of facts in sequence 

 was a kind of science to which systematists, as such, were 

 not accustomed, and which, therefore, some of them put aside 

 austerely as that which was not science but * speculation.' 

 " Parenthetically we may notice that though scientific opinion in 

 general became rapidly converted to the doctrine of pure selection, 

 there was one remarkable exception. Systematists, for the most 

 part, kept aloof. Every one was convinced that Natural Selection, 

 operating in a continuously varying population, was a sufficient 

 account of the origin of species, except the one class of scientific 

 workers whose labours familiarized them with the phenomenon of 

 specific difference. From that time the systematists became, as they 

 still in great measure remain, a class apart. A separation has been 

 effected between those who lead theoretical opinion and those who by 

 taste or necessity have retained an acquaintance with the facts. 2 The 

 consequences of that separation have been many and grievous. To it 

 are to be traced the extraordinary misapprehensions as to the funda- 

 mental phenomena of specific difference which are now prevalent" 3 



1 " We claim for Darwin that he is the Newton of natural history, and that, 

 just so surely as that the discovery and demonstration by Newton of the law 

 of gravitation established order in place of chaos, and laid a sure foundation for 

 all future study of the starry heavens, so surely has Darwin, by his discovery of 

 the law of natural selection and his demonstration of the great principle of the 

 preservation of useful variations in the struggle for life, not only thrown a flood 

 of light on the process of development of the whole organic world, but also estab- 

 lished a firm foundation for all future study of nature " (A. R. Wallace, Darwinism, 

 p. 9). Nothing in the histories of scientific men is more remarkable than Dr 

 Wallace's attitude. No one would suspect from his own writings that he was 

 Darwin's co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection. He assigns the whole 

 credit to the elder thinker. I imagine that posterity will be more just. 



2 Among those who ' lead theoretical opinion,' but who, to judge from 

 Bateson's language, have not ' retained an acquaintance with the facts,' are 

 Wallace, Hooker, Thiselton-Dyer, Lankester, Weismann, Osborn, and Poulton. 



3 Bateson, Mendel's Principles of Heredity, p. 3. Bateson continues, " If 

 species had really arisen by the Natural Selection for impalpable differences, 

 intermediate forms should abound, and the limits between species should be 

 on the whole indefinite. As this conclusion follows necessarily from the premises, 

 the selectionists believe and declare that it represents the facts of nature." 

 Bateson is mistaken. Selectionists believe that evolution has resulted, not from 

 the selection of impalpable, but from the selection of fluctuating differences. 

 The distinction is important. Natural selection amongst human beings is the 

 only instance of this process observable by us, and the reader is now in a position 

 to judge whether, for instance, the difference between a man who perishes of 

 consumption and one who survives in the same environment is ' impalpable.' If 

 selection amongst men were such that short and weak individuals were eliminated, 

 while tall and strong individuals survived, if men, for example, fought for their 



