Habit and Instinct. 



virtue of its being in harmonious accord with the mental 

 system of the animal possessed of the power of conscious 

 choice. 



Attention must here again be drawn to the difference 

 in method between the process of natural selection through 

 elimination and the process of conscious choice. The 

 former is characteristic of organic evolution as such ; the 

 latter is the distinctive feature of mental evolution. Let 

 us take the former, natural selection, first. Given a 

 number of individuals, differing in fitness to meet the 

 conditions of their life, and subjected to the inevitable 

 struggle for existence. There results a process of elimina- 

 tion. The first to go are the most unfit; then others 

 in the order of their unfitness ; until there results a 

 survival of the fittest ; and these alone contribute to the 

 continuation of the race by the propagation of their kind. 

 The elimination begins at the unfit end of the scale, and 

 works its way upwards progressively, until a fit remainder 

 survives. This is the natural selection of Darwin. It 

 is a method by which, under the struggle for existence, 

 there is an elimination of the unfit, with the consequent 

 survival of the fittest. Conscious choice, on the other 

 hand, the method of mental evolution as such, throughout 

 its whole range deals with the given material in a different 

 way. It works along the scale in the opposite direction. 

 The first to be chosen is that which evokes most strongly 

 and most harmoniously the selective consciousness in the 

 mental system of the chooser. The fittest in this sense is 

 the first to be selected, not the last to survive. Then the 

 next in order of fitness is chosen ; and so on, beginning at 

 the fittest end of the scale and working its way downwards. 



Now suppose that in either case there are one hundred 

 variations ; and suppose that natural selection, working 

 up the scale, eliminates ninety-five, and leaves a survival 



