154 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



the new environment, Natural Selection is supreme. Hence 

 arises the real distinction, though we may not always be 

 able to distinguish them, between specific and non-specific 

 or developmental characters. The former are those definite 

 though slight modifications through which each new species 

 actually becomes adapted to its changed environment. They 

 are, therefore, in their very nature, useful. The latter [i.e., 

 individual differences] are due to the laws which determine the 

 growth and development of the organism, and, therefore, rarely 

 coincide exactly with the limits of a species." ^ 



Now, the first thing which strikes the reader is the ex- 

 tremely hypothetical style of the whole of this passage on 

 Natural Selection, as shown by the words I have italicised. 

 After having collected thousands of facts, published in the two 

 large volumes. Animals and Plants Under Domestication (upon 

 which the Origin of Species was based) it seems somewhat 

 curious that Darwin could not write more confidently than he 

 has here done. 



Moreover, there is another fallacy lurking behind unseen. 

 At what period of life does the struggle for existence mostly 

 take place ? It is during the growth to maturity. If the off- 

 spring do grow to maturity, so as to be able to propagate, they 

 are ipso facto naturally selected. If they do not, but perish 

 prematurely, death takes place before any important variation 

 has arisen ; as, for example, in the flowers and fruits of plants; 

 since specific characters are not looked for, nor based by 

 systematic botanists and zoologists on immature features, which 

 may change or be lost before the fixed adult stage is reached. 



It is worth while considering this important point some- 

 what fully. 



Specific and still more generic characters, I repeat, are, as 

 a rule, taken from ihQ flotuers dci\(\ fruits, much more than from 

 the vegetative organs. 



The struggle for existence takes place mainly amongst 

 seedlings ; for if an annual can succeed in flowering, or a 

 1 Fortnightly Review, March, 1895, p. 444. 



