162 The Bible of Nature 



direction crop up generation after generation, if 

 there is gradual augmentation of the amount of 

 the profitable peculiarity (through the pairing of 

 similar variants or otherwise), and if the discrim- 

 inate selection continues consistently, then the 

 process will necessarily work toward the estab- 

 lishment of new adaptations. 



Given a sufficient crop of variations and suffi- 

 cient time, what may a process of selection not 

 effect? 



Conditions of Progress through Selection. — ^There 

 are two conditions, however; first, that some of the 

 variations continually occurring are in the direc- 

 tion of fitness, and secondly, that the process of 

 elimination, for elimination it comes to, is a dis- 

 criminate process. Neither of these conditions 

 is to be lightly passed over. The occurrence of 

 variations in a profitable direction is often a great 

 puzzle, which has led some to take refuge in verb- 

 alisms, ^Snherent tendencies to perfection," and 

 the like. Especially when the new departure is 

 not merely quantitative, but qualitatively novel, 

 and exhibited suddenly, is the puzzle great. We 

 have a Mutation Theory, but no theory of muta- 

 tions. Natural Selection, as some one says, ex- 

 plains the survival of the fittest, but not the arrival 

 of the fittest. As usual, it is a question of the 

 beginnings which gives us pause. And as to the 

 second point, we must be clear that indiscrimi- 



