146 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



Darwinism,"^ and is rapidly gaining ground among observers, 

 especially, perhai)s, in France and the United States. 



Let us consider what really takes place in Nature. 



As long as animals and plants live for generations under 

 the same conditions of life their forms are constant, allowing 

 for trivial individual differences, which supply no basis for 

 classification. But when they migrate and their ofiTspring grow 

 up under a new set of conditions, markedly different from those 

 formerly surrounding the species, Darwin supposed that the 

 new conditions stimulated the latent variability (or innate 

 capacity for varying) and that as they grew up to the adult 

 stage, they varied " indefinitely," some variations being in- 

 different, others useless or even injurious ; while a few only, 

 perchance, varied in such a way as to be slightly beneficial. 

 These alone, he said, would survive, and all the others die 

 before reaching maturity. That imaginary process he called 

 " Natural Selection," with the " Survival of the Fittest ". Then 

 by the accumulation of favourable slight variations a new 

 " species " would be established after many generations ; but 

 it must be carefully observed that there is no Natural Laiv 

 connecting such chance favourable variations with the re- 

 quirements of the organism under the new conditions of 

 hfe. 



No evidence has ever f^een forthcoming from Nature in sup- 

 port of this theory of ^' the Origin of Species by means of Natural 

 Selection ". v 



The difficulty of accidental variations being sufficient has 

 been observed by many. Weismann asks how we can account 

 for " the occurrence of the right variations at the right place? " 

 How is it that "the useful variations were always present, or 

 that they always existed in a sufficiently large number of indi- 



• 



' It has already acquired a name in botany, viz., " Ecology " (or 

 Oecology, as some prefer it), i.e., " the study of the homes " of plants, in- 

 cluding their adaptive structures to their environments, respectively. 

 The latest work is Dr. Schimper's Plant Geography on a Physiological 

 Basis. 



