Isolation and Selection 169 



and it implies that these objects are chosen for some 

 reason or other.' In referring to the writer's views he 

 seems to have seen the table on p. 166, in which are given 

 several sorts of ' selection ' current in the literature of 

 evolution. Seeing that the definition given by Mr. Hutton 

 is pre-Darwinian, and that much of the warfare which 

 Darwin and subsequent evolutionists had to wage was 

 precisely over this term * selection' — leaving aside the 

 question whether Darwin chose the term wisely or not in 

 the first instance — it is scarcely possible now to go back to 

 the pre-Darwinian view which Professor Hutton advocates. 

 Indeed, he himself, in this letter, says concerning natural 

 selection : * The term has become so firmly established 

 that it can well be allowed to pass if used only in Dar- 

 win's sense of advantage gained in the struggle for exist- 

 ence, either by the individual or by the species.' 



This admitted, there is only one thing to do, that is to 

 recognize the two general uses of the term 'Selection,' the 

 pre-Darwinian (or conscious) Selection 'for some reason 

 or other,* and the Darwinian (or post-Darwinian) Selection, 

 of which survival on groimds of utility is the sole cri- 

 terion. Now it is true enough that all sorts of confusion 

 arise from the interchange of these two meanings of 

 selection ; and it was with a view to the correlation of the 

 different conceptions under certain headings (* means ' and 

 'result ') that the table was drawn up. However, it was 

 recommended that selection in the Darwinian sense be 

 used without qualification only when the conditions of 

 organic progress by survival are present, namely, natural 

 selection ^ and physical heredity. These requirements the 



1 In saying natural selection and physical heredity, one assumes the requisite 

 supply of variations. 



