THE METHOD 87 



A curious fact is, that an imitator is never found 

 living apart from the form which it imitates. The 

 mocked forms are distasteful to the birds, which eat 

 butterflies, but the mockers are tasteful, and are there- 

 fore not found in large groups. The survivors of the 

 edible groups are the mockers, and thus escape being 

 devoured. 



Natural selection is merely a term, and perhaps not 

 a very apt one, to indicate the process going on in a 

 state of nature by which particular forms, assumed by 

 matter and motion are perpetuated, or persist, while 

 other such forms do not persist. It is so analogous to 

 what theology has ascribed to a personal creator, or 

 to what man does in breeding animals, or in cultivat- 

 ing vegetables in a garden, that Mr. Darwin and Mr. 

 Wallace, both called it, "Natural Selection." Mr. 

 Spencer's term "survival of the fittest" better de- 

 scribes the fact, and seems also to make the process 

 appear less a matter of personal intelligence, which 

 the word selection, in one sense implies. The term 

 "natural selection" however, does not imply the crea- 

 tion of something out of nothing, and therefore it is 

 not a full substitute for the theological conception of 

 a personal creator. It does not even create forms 

 from matter and motion. When forms come into ex- 

 istence by the unknown tendencies of what we call 

 the rhythm of motion, and condensation, the perpetua- 

 tion of some, and the annihilation of others, is the pro- 

 cess we call "natural selection." 



WEISSMAN. Natural selection does not produce varia- 

 tions, nor does it cause heredity, although Weissman 

 adopted a theory that variations are produced, by the 

 selective process in the determinants of the germ plasm. 

 Weissman is a very bold and interesting writer upon 



