XIX. 

 ON ARCH^STHETISM. 



I. THE HYPOTHESIS OF USE AKD EFFOKT. 



The claims of the theory of Lamarck, that use modifies struct- 

 ure in the animal kingdom, are being more carefully considered 

 than heretofore, and are being admitted in quarters where they 

 have been hitherto neglected or ignored. Eleven years ago I re- 

 stated the question as follows : * 



"■ The influences and forces which have operated to produce 

 the type-structures of the animal kingdom have been plainly of 

 two kinds : 1. Originative; 2. Directive. The jorime importance 

 of the former is obvious ; that the latter is only secondary in the 

 order of time or succession, is evident from the fact that it con- 

 trols the preservation or destruction of the results or creations of 

 the first. 



"Wallace and Darwin have propounded as the cause of modi- 

 fication in descent their law of natural selection. This law has 

 been epitomized by Spencer as the 'survival of the fittest.' Tiiis 

 neat expression no doubt covers the case, but it leaves the origin 

 of the fittest entirely untouched. Darwin assumes a 'tendency 

 to variation ' in nature, and it is plainly necessary to do this^ in 

 order that materials for the exercise of a selection should exist. 

 Darwin and Wallace's law is, then, only restrictive, directive, con- 

 servative, or destructive of something already created. I propose 

 then to seek for the originative laws by which these subjects are 

 furnished — in other words, for the causes of the origin of the 

 fittest. 



*' It has seemed to the author so clear from the first as to re- 

 quire no demonstration, that natural selection includes no actively 

 progressive principle whatever ; that it must first wait for the de- 



* "The Method of Creation," 1871, pp. 2 and 18, Walker Prize Essay, Proceeds, 

 Amor. Ph:ios. Soc, pp. 2^0-246. 



