NATURAL SELECTION SINCE DARWIN 69 



ences observable among them do not help them in 

 any way. We could cite many more instances prov- 

 ing that it is not the fittest which survive but those 

 which, by a fort unate coinciden ce happen at a critical <- 

 time to find themselves far enough from whatever 

 destructive factor brings death to the others. 

 /*Thus it appears that the action of natural selection 

 is m ore limite d than the orthodox Darwinians as- * 

 sumed and that, at any rate, natural selection is not 

 the only posit ive f actopflt is even questioned whether 

 within its own limits it has the influence attributed to 

 it by selectionists. Opponents of the selection the- 

 ory declare that the facts are presented in a too dog- 

 matic way. To make things simpler, they say, it is 

 supposed that one character varies in one individual 

 and that natural selection bears exclusively upon that 

 character while all the other characters remain un- 

 changed. /In fact, variations as considered by Dar- 

 win and especially by the Neo-Darwinians, are acci- 

 dental and spontaneous and independent of any 

 predetermined and exclusive cause/ One is not jus- 

 tified, therefore, in assuming that they could not 

 appear in different forms and thereby com- 

 pensate one another. Herbert Spencer cites the fol- 

 lowing case in support of this view: "Keenness of \^ 

 scent in a deer, by giving early notice of approach- 

 ing enemies, subserves life so greatly that, other 

 things being equal, an individual having it in an 



