172 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



In proving that Natural Selection has nothing to do with 

 " Selecting " the best fitted to survive out of an imaginary 

 series of " indefinite " variations, I would emphasise the fact 

 that it must not be thought that this phrase " Natural Selec- 

 tion " stands for nothing at all. The datum which both 

 Darwin and Wallace start with is perfectly true, viz.^ that more 

 plants and animals are produced annually than can possibly 

 live to maturity. 



Even if they were all to vary " definitely," and be therefore 

 in complete adaptation to the environment, still the majority 

 7nust die, and that is what Natural Selection represents. 



Then, again, it plays a large part among adult animals and 

 plants which are not concerned with the process of evolving 

 themselves into new varieties. It is their offspring whose 

 business it is to do that. 



There was a great plague of voles in Scotland a few years 

 ago, as also of ladybirds in South England in 1868. But any 

 great excess occasionally occurring is soon checked and Nature 

 returns to the normal supply. Natural Selection, but of course 

 only metaphorically, may be said to have rearranged these 

 matters. 



Similarly among ourselves an epidemic takes place ; one or 

 two victims are carried off from several families ; while the rest 

 are " selected " and survive. 



A few years ago, I had two sorts of strawberries, there being 

 three rows of each kind. When in fruit the mycelium of a 

 fungus formed itself over all the berries of one sort, but not at 

 all on the other kind. 



One more illustration : Many European weeds have found 

 their way into our colonies; and it is notorious how vigorous 



artificially in a very dry and a very, moist air. The structures, morpho- 

 logical and anatomical, especially developed under these conditions, 

 were precisely those characteristics of desert and marsh plants respec- 

 tively, so that this experimental verification thoroughly corroborates the 

 inductive evidence drawn from the study of plants growing naturally in 

 dry and moist places. 



