February 8, 1894] 



NA TURE 



335 



(p. 214.) The Journal says so little of] the struggle that 

 Dr. Stirling believes the idea to have been only an after- 

 thought, followingthe readingofMalthus,andheconcludes 

 the chapter with the opinion of Goethe, that, "in whatever 

 situation of life we are placed, and wherever we fall, we 

 never want actual food"— and he adds— "This means, 

 that however galling the straits of life may be, there is 

 no struggle such that, failing to triumph, we must perish 

 in defeat." 



The next chapter — on the Survival of the Fittest — is a 

 short one ; and it might well have been shorter, since it 

 begins thus : - 



'•As regards our other consideration at present, it is 

 pretty evident that if struggle there is none, survival, in 

 that it simply means result of foregone contest, can be, 

 and must be, so far, only a dead letter." 



This, though forcible, is cautious, but the next para- 

 graph sets the thing in a still clearer light. 



" But, just squarely to say it, the proposition itself, 

 survival of the fittest, is as things are, preposterousness 

 proper. It is simply absurdity's self — the absolutely 

 false." 



And then follows, quite unnecessarily, a metaphysical 

 and scriptural demonstration of the same thing, in which 

 comets, tides, wind, the earthquake of Lisbon, the Black 

 Hole of Calcutta, contingency, time, and physical neces- 

 sity, with a host of other things, are all dragged in to 

 enforce the argument. This abstract argument was, 

 however, felt to need support by a concrete example, as 

 follows : — 



" Survival of the Fittest ! Of two lions that fight, must 

 the strongest win .'' How about a thorn, or a stone, or an 

 unlucky miss, and an unfortunate grapple, and a fatal 

 strain — to say nothing of infinite contingencies of rest 

 and fatigue, of sleep, and food, and health, that 

 precede ? " 



And after a few more such illustrations we have the 

 conclusion, that — 



" The proposition, as we have seen in fact, is wholly 

 false as it stands." 



And after some more vain attempts to arrive at any 

 meaning in this "absurdity's self," the argument is 

 clenched with what is evidently felt to be a t'eductio ad 

 abstirdum, and which is indeed a very gem of logic, as 

 follows : — 



" Is it possible in such a struggle — a struggle that just 

 constitutes existence — is it possible in such a struggle for 

 even a single competitor to survive him who is the fittest 

 to survive .'' If individual with individual, species with 

 species, genus with genus, must struggle, how is it that 

 the infinitude of time has not already reduced all life to 

 a single unit.^" (p. 222.) 



Every biologist, every reader of Nature, will now, I 

 am sure, see that I was justified in speaking of the 

 almost incredible ignorance and misapprehension ex- 

 hibited in this book ; but we have yet to find still more 

 glaring examples of it. Two chapters, entitled " Deter- 

 mination of what the Darwinian Theory Is" and 

 "Design,'' may be passed over, and then follow six 

 chapters of " Natural Selection Criticised," from which 

 a few Illustrations of the capacity of the critic must be 

 given. 



N. . I 267, VOL. 49] 



After Dr. Stirling's confident assertion that there is no 

 struggle and no survival, and that the very idea of there 

 being any such phenomena is " absurdity's self,' we shall 

 not be surprised to find that he prides himself on having 

 cleared up a subject which Darwin left vague, indefinite, 

 and obscure. He says : — 



" It is only through long, patient looking that the par- 

 ticular moments in the theory have reached the clearness 

 which we should be glad to think they will be found to 

 possess in these pages." (p. 342.) 



This is in the last chapter, when the author can look 

 back with satisfaction on his completed work. 



One of the difficulties he has cleared up is the meaning 

 of the word origin, in " Origin of Species." He says there 

 is never a moment's question of the origin of a single 

 species : 



" There is not even a hint before us of such a thing as 

 origin. Change there is, not origin. We have a middle, 

 elastic enough it may be, but we have no beginning, no 

 origin, no first." (p. 250.) 



And a little further on, having previously referred to 

 small living armadillos and the gigantic extinct species, 

 and having asserted that " It was the obvious resem- 

 blance common to both that irresistibly convinced ]\Ir. 

 Darwin of the indubitable descent of the one from the 

 other"— a statement for which he gives usno authorit}-- 

 for the good reason that none can be given — he deals 

 with the question in the following brilliant style : — 



" Origin ! We are referred from the Galapagos to the 

 South American Continent, and there again the problem 

 stares us in the face, only harder than ever. What is the 

 origin of these South Americans ? Again origin ! Wh::.!. 

 is the origin of these pigmies .-' and you refer us to giants ! 

 Good heavens ! To be contented that the whole problem 

 of the pigmies was solved in the giants, and never once 

 to have asked what of these ! Surely the giants at once 

 suggest an infinitely more instant question as to origin 

 than the pigmies. That pigmies, too, could come out ol 

 giants — such pigmies out of such giants ! Was it 

 selection, natural selection, condescended to such a feat 

 as that.'' ... Is that what is meant by 'the preservation 

 of favoured races in the struggle for existence'— these 

 pigmies ? The nine-foot Glyptodon dies, the six-inch 

 armadillo lives — is that the survival of the fittest .'"' 

 (p. 251.) 



This may be called argument by exclamation and in- 

 terrogation founded on misconception, and it goes on 

 with wearisome monotony page after page. And at the 

 very end of the book he still stumbles over the same 

 difficulty : 



" This is strange, too — in the whole ' Origin of Species ' 

 there is not a single word of origin ! The very species 

 which is to originate never originates, but, on the con- 

 trary, is always to the fore." 



And again : 



" It was only the word origin did all this ; and the 

 word origin, strictly was a misnomer ; misleading, not 

 novelists alone, but the general public as such, into antici- 

 pations of a beginning and a first that was to be, as it 

 were, a new creation of all things ; whereas Mr. Darwin 

 himself exclaims, ' It is mere rubbish thinking at present 

 of the origin of life ! ' Had Mr. Darwin but used. 



