Criticisms of Orgcuiic Selection 157 



gets its value only because it is selected, as natural 

 selection does all its selecting. Even might we say that 

 the very ability to make personal adaptations may pos- 

 sibly be due to natural selection. But Professor Cattell 

 goes too far in saying : ' If organic selection is itself 

 a congenital variation, as Professor Baldwin indicates 

 [as possible],! we are still in the status quo of chance 

 variations and natural selection.' Not entirely, indeed, 

 since the future variations are narrowed down in their 

 range within certain limits. Say a creature is kept alive 

 and begets young because he can adapt himself intelli- 

 gently or socially, and say his mate has the same charac- 

 ter; then the mean of variations in the next generation 

 will tend in the same direction, as Professor Cattell himself 

 recognizes.2 Of course, so far as this point goes, we do 

 * remain ignorant as to why the individual makes suitable 

 adaptations ' ; that is quite a different question, involving, 

 it seems, for adjustments in the sphere of muscular move- 

 ment, another application of natural selection, i.e., to 

 overproduced or excessive movements ^ ; but we do not 

 remain ignorant as to 'why congenital variations occur 

 in the line of evolution,' admitting that they occur at all. 

 And, of course, we do remain in ignorance as to why * they 

 [variations] are hereditary ' ; that again is a matter of the 

 mechanism of heredity. 



In connection with this question of 'newness' — as 

 unprofitable as it is to dwell upon it — another remark of 



1 Cf. my Mental Develop??ient, pp. 172 ff., 204 ff. 



2 In the illustration he gives of organic selection, i.e., of dogs becoming 

 granivorous from feeding on grain during many generations. 



3 Criticisms of this hypothesis of Functional Selection I cannot consider 

 here. It is now, 1901, rather widely accepted: see Lloyd Morgan, Animal 

 Behaviour, and Groos, The Play of Man, ' Experimenting.' 



