190 CRITICISMS ON " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES " 



a translation should be regarded as a travesty ; but with 

 the original before the reader, we may try to analyse the 

 passage. " For an organized being, Nature is only organiza- 

 tion, neither more nor less." 



Organized beings then have absolutely no relation to 

 inorganic nature : a plant does not depend on soil or 

 sunshine, climate, depth in the ocean, height above it ; the 

 quantity of saline matters in water have no influence upon 

 animal life ; the substitution of carbonic acid for oxygen 

 in our atmosphere would hurt nobody I That these are 

 absurdities no one should know better than M. Flourens ; 

 but they are logical deductions from the assertion just 

 quoted, and from the further statement that natural 

 selection means only that " organization chooses and selects 

 organization." 



For if it be at once admitted (what no sane man denies) 

 that the chances of life of any given organism are increased 

 by certain conditions (A) and diminished by their opposites 

 (B), then it is mathematically certain that any change of 

 conditions in the direction of (A) will exercise a selective 

 influence in favour of that organism, tending to its increase 

 and multiplication, while any change in the direction of (B) 

 will exercise a selective influence against that organism, 

 tending to its decrease and extinction. 



Or, on the other hand, conditions remaining the same, let 

 a given organism vary (and no one doubts that they do 

 vary) in two directions : into one form (a) better fitted to 

 cope with these conditions than the original stock, and a 

 second (b) less well adapted to them. Then it is no less 

 certain that the conditions in question must exercise a 

 selective influence in favour of (a) and against (b), so that 

 (a) will tend to predominance, and (b) to extirpation. 



That M. Flourens should be unable to perceive the logical 

 necessity of these simple arguments, which lie at the 

 foundation of all Mr. Darwin's reasoning ; that he should 

 confound an irrefragable deduction from the observed 

 relations of organisms to the conditions which lie around 

 them, with a metaphysical " forme substantielle," or a 

 chimerical personification of the powers of Nature, would 

 be incredible, were it not that other passages of his work 

 leave no room for doubt upon the subject. 



" On imagine une Election naturelle que, pour plus de management, 

 on me dit 6trc inconsciente, sans s'apercevoir que le contre-sens 

 literal est pr<Scis6ment la : Election inconsciente." (P. 52.) 



