360 Appendix B 



ways lie open, but the elders, by example and persuasion, lead 

 the young into some road or roads swerving at no very great 

 angle from that already followed or into the one that leads 

 straight on. Since the young are not allowed to follow their 

 devious caprices, it is seldom that individuals are found press- 

 ing into widely divergent paths. And so the species does not 

 waste itself by vaguely experimenting in new directions. And 

 hence, too. Natural Selection, a policeman who lynches all who 

 don't go the pace or who take a wrong road, works, in a limited 

 field, among the masses that crowd the track that continues the 

 line already followed or others that diverge but slightly from it : 

 among these masses it acts with the utmost stringency ; the 

 laggards are ruthlessly cut off, and evolution goes rapidly on. 



" This, I believe, fairly represents the process of evolution in 

 the higher species. But the Lamarckian may fairly enter a 

 demurrer and say : " Low down in the animal scale, the new 

 principle can work but feebly, if at all. There Natural Selec- 

 tion acts directly on the individual from the moment of his 

 birth or the moment of the depositing of the ^gg. And yet 

 there have been developed forms as high as the newt and the 

 Hzard, — an enormous advance from the lowest types. Can 

 Natural Selection have achieved all this ? If not we must find 

 something that will assist it at every stage from the bottom to 

 the top ; not a principle which does not begin to operate till 

 the higher levels have been already attained." 



" This objection certainly requires answering.^ Let us recur 

 to our simile which represents a species as a herd driven along 

 a road from which many roads lead off. If the elders do not 

 guide the young there will be perpetual deviations, most of 

 them ending in wholesale destruction till some guiding tendency 

 develops and is fostered by Natural Selection. This guiding 

 tendency is rigid instinct, and even that does not prevent a 

 slaughter, mainly during infancy, enormously above what takes 

 place among the higher classes of animals. As the crowd 



1 It is claimed by the present writer that this objection is met by the claim 

 that all characters in their development in the individual require some accom- 

 modation. This gives organic selection its chance everywhere. — J. M. B. 



