THE METHOD 95 



causes of variation, and when variation, and heredity, 

 are combined in one process, the continuation, or per- 

 petuity, of the varied forms depends wholly on adap- 

 tability, or natural selection. Therefore, natural selec- 

 tion is not a cause of variation. It makes no difference, 

 whether the cause of any given variation has operated, 

 by way of the determinants of Weissman, or in any 

 other manner, natural selection only begins, where all 

 the causes of variation leave off. For instance, if 

 sexual selection produces a variation from either, or 

 both parents, which is beneficial to its possessor, in 

 the struggle for existence, and that variation proves 

 hereditary, then its continuance is a selective process. 

 Or, if a variation arise by use, or non-use of some of 

 the bones, muscles, or internal organs, of an animal, 

 and that variation becomes hereditary, then its contin- 

 uance is a selective process, and the individuals of the 

 same species who have not the same, or an equally 

 efficacious variation, will naturally die out by the 

 increase of the ones who inherit the valuable variation. 



Darwin did not claim that natural selection was a 

 cause of variation, although it has been stated that 

 he did. 



ORIGIN OP ORGANIC MATTER. Evolutionists do not pre- 

 tend to account for the origin of matter and motion, nor 

 of life, because they have no sensory proof. Bastian 

 says : ' ' The. inorganic is being continually fashioned 

 into the organic, and this after passing through succes- 

 sive changes, and after having displayed the manifesta- 

 tion of life, is ever passing again into the inorganic." 

 But this assertion, that the inorganic is being con- 

 tinually fashioned into the organic, must be taken to 

 mean, that after the birth of organisms naturally from 

 egg-cells, their development is caused by accretion of 

 inorganic matter. 



