THE INADEQUACY OF "NATURAL SELECTION." 21 



it brings, is praised in verse. From the chrysanthemums in 

 autumn, the camellias and plum blossoms of the winter months, 

 the cherry and peach blossoms and wistaria during early spring, 

 the peony in May, and the great lotus flowers during the summer 

 months, so every season has its typical flower, and every flower 

 is loved and praised in song and sonnet by the people. There is 

 room for flowers in the humblest abode, and even the crests of the 

 thatch-roofed huts of the farmers are transformed into miniature 

 gardens of hyacinths and tulips. 



So we have pushed aside the latticed doors and glanced in at the 

 Japanese home. True, our stay has been short, and much must 

 be left unnoticed ; yet, as we take our reluctant leave, above the 

 soft melody of the koto strings, we can clearly hear the lusty chirp 

 of the " cricket on the hearth/' 



THE INADEQUACY OF " NATURAL SELECTION." 



BY HERBERT SPENCER. 



ALONG with that inadequacy of natural section to explain 

 changes of structure which do not aid life in important 

 ways, alleged in 166 of The Principles of Biology, a further in- 

 adequacy was alleged. It was contended that the relative powers 

 of co-operative parts can not be adjusted solely by survival of the 

 fittest ; and especially where the parts are numerous and the co- 

 operation complex. In illustration it was pointed out that im- 

 mensely developed horns, such as those of the extinct Irish elk, 

 weighing over a hundredweight, could not, with the massive 

 skull bearing them, be carried at the extremity of the outstretched 

 neck without many and great modifications of adjacent bones and 

 muscles of the neck and thorax ; and that without strengthening 

 of the fore-legs, too, there would be failure alike in fighting and in 

 locomotion. And it was argued that while we can not assume 

 spontaneous increase of all these parts proportionate to the ad- 

 ditional strains, we can not suppose them to increase by variation 

 one at once, without supposing the creature to be disadvantaged 

 by the weight and nutrition of parts that were for the time use- 

 less parts, moreover, which would revert to their original sizes 

 before the other needful variations occurred. 



When, in reply to me, it was cgntended that co-operative parts 

 vary together, I named facts conflicting with this assertion the 

 fact that the blind crabs of the Kentucky caves have lost their 

 eyes but not the foot-stalks carrying them ; the fact that the nor- 

 mal proportion between tongue and beak in certain selected varie- 

 ties of pigeons is lost ; the fact that lack of concomitance in de- 



