EVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 15 



Then, as there are many fields of action and possibilities of ob- 

 taining support in the world, that the weaker will first be driven 

 to adopt such of these as their peculiarities may adapt them for, 

 or not exclude them from. Thus all the positions in the world's 

 economy are filled and the surplus destroyed. This is styled by 

 Spencer the ^'survival of the fittest" ; an expression both com- 

 prehensive and exact. 



This doctrine is no doubt a true one, and has regulated the 

 preservation of the variations of species, and assigned them their 

 locations in the economy of nature. It was natural that this great 

 law should have been brought out by such men as Darwin and 

 AYallace, who are bv nature much more of observers of life in the 

 field, or out-door physiologists, than they are (or were) anatomists 

 and embryologists. Their wi'itings in their chosen field of the 

 mutual relations of living beings in their search and struggle for 

 means of existence are admirable, and almost unique, especially 

 some of those of Darwin. 



It is to be observed, however, that they both (especially Dar- 

 win) start with the variations observed. This is assumed at the 

 outset, and necessarily so, for " selection " requires alternatives, 

 and these are the product of variation. Great obscurity has arisen 

 from the supposition that natural selection can originate anything, 

 and the obscurity has not been lessened by the assertion often made 

 that these variations are due to inheritance ! What is inheritance 

 but repetition of characters possessed by some (no matter what) 

 ancestor; and if so, where did that ancestor obtain the peculiarity? 

 The origin of variation is thus only thrown upon an earlier period. 



Another reason why natural selection fails to account for the 

 structures of many organic beings is the fact that in expressing 

 " the survival of the fittest " it requires that the structures pre- 

 served should be especially useful to their possessors. Now, per- 

 haps half of all the peculiarities of the parts of animals (and 

 probably of plants) are of no use to their possessors, or not more 

 useful to them than many other existing structures would have 

 been. It fails to account for many characters which express the 

 relations of homology and parnllelism, and is almost confined in 

 its exhibitions to features which express teleology. This objection 

 has been insisted on by Kolliker, the writer, and by Mivart ; and 

 now Huxley, while defending Darwinism proper against the last- 

 named author, says that "wliat the hypothesis of evolution wants 

 is a good theory of variation.'" 



