Selfishness 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



616 



\ve may, constitutes one of the most con- 

 sistent and clearly defined distinctions which 

 can be drawn between the world of life and 

 the great encompassing universe of non- 

 living matter. ANDREW WILSON Facts and 

 Fictions of Zoology, p. 30. (Hum., 1882.) 



3045. SELECTION, ARTIFICIAL, 

 THE MAGICIAN'S WAND Agriculturist 

 May Mold His Flock at Pleasure. Youatt, 

 who was probably better acquainted with 

 the works of agriculturists than almost any 

 other individual, and who was himself a 

 very good judge of animals, speaks of the 

 principle of selection as " that which enables 

 the agriculturist not only to modify the 

 character of his flock, but to change it alto- 

 gether. It is the magician's wand, by means 

 of which he may summon into life whatever 

 form and mold he pleases." DARWIN Origin 

 of Species, ch. 1, p. 27. (Burt.) 



3046. SELECTION, ARTIFICIAL, UN- 

 CONSCIOUSLY PRACTISED BY SAVAGES 



If there exist savages so barbarous as 

 never to think of the inherited character of 

 the offspring of their domestic animals, yet 

 any one animal particularly useful to them, 

 for any special purpose, would be carefully 

 preserved during famines and other acci- 

 dents, to which savages are so liable, and 

 such choice animals would thus generally 

 leave more offspring than the inferior ones, 

 so that in this case there would be a kind 

 of unconscious selection going on. DARWIN 

 Origin of Species, ch. 1, p. 31. (Burt.) 



3047. SELECTIpN IMPLIES REJEC- 

 TION Selection implies rejection as well as 

 choice; and the function of ignoring, of in- 

 attention, is as vital a factor in mental 

 progress as the function of attention itself. 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 22, p. 371. 

 (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



3048. SELECTION, NATURAL In 



Man Devoted to Mind Tools Take the Place 

 of New Organs. As an optical instrument, 

 the eye had well-nigh reached extreme per- 

 fection in many a bird and mammal ages 

 before man's beginnings; and the essential 

 features of the human hand existed al- 

 ready in the hands of Miocene apes. But 

 different methods came in when human in- 

 telligence appeared upon the scene. Mr. 

 Spencer has somewhere reminded us that 

 the crowbar is but an extra lever added to 

 the levers of which the arm is already com- 

 posed, and the telescope but adds a new 

 set of lenses to those which already ex- 

 ist in the eye. This beautiful illustration 

 goes to the kernel of the change that was 

 wrought when natural selection began to 

 confine itself to the psychical modification 

 of our ancestors. In a very deep sense all 

 human science is but the increment of the 

 power of the eye, and all human art is the 

 increment of the power of the hand. FISKE 

 Destiny of Man, ch. 7, p. 59. (H. M. & Co., 

 1900.) 



3O49. 



Not a Cause 



Forma To Be Selected Must First Exist 

 Not Origin, but Success of Variations. Nat- 

 ural selection can do nothing except with 

 the materials presented to its hands. It 

 cannot select except among the things open 

 to selection. Natural selection can originate 

 nothing; it can only pick out and choose 

 among the things which are originated by 

 some other law. Strictly speaking, there- 

 fore, Mr. Darwin's theory is not a theory on 

 the origin of species at all, but only a 

 theory on the causes which lead to the rela- 

 tive success or failure of such new forms 

 as may be born into the world. It is the 

 more important to remember this distinc- 

 tion, because it seems to me that Mr. Dar- 

 win himself frequently forgets it. ARGYLL 

 Reign of Law, ch. 5, p. 130. (Burt.) 



3O5O. Personified Or- 

 ganisms Invested with Power of Self-crea- 

 tion Plants and Animals Credited with De- 

 sign. In one of those most able expositions 

 of the doctrine of the origin of species by 

 natural selection, by which Professor Hux- 

 ley very early impressed the educated pub- 

 lic with the scientific value of the new 

 views which Mr. Darwin had opened out, 

 he remarked that nothing had more strong- 

 ly impressed him than the fact that they 

 had completely disposed of the old teleolog- 

 ical argument; the adaptations in organized 

 structures which had been regarded as evi- 

 dences of " design " being sufficiently ac- 

 counted for as results of the " survival of 

 the fittest." And this view of the case has 

 been so zealously adopted by some of the 

 younger advocates of the doctrine that they 

 have gone the length of representing the 

 plants and animals which exhibit them as 

 having made themselves for the purposes 

 which their organization is found to answer 

 as if they had the intelligent design which 

 is denied to an universal Creator. When 

 challenged to justify that language they rep- 

 resent it as merely " figurative " ; their in- 

 tention being only to show that, as natural 

 selection gives a sufficient account of the 

 adaptiveness, there is no need to seek for 

 any other explanation of it. CARPENTER 

 Nature and Man, lect. 15, p. 435. (A., 1889.) 



3051. 



Will Not Explain 



Man Darwin Never Accounted for the 

 Genesis of Man. Yet not only are there ex- 

 tensive regions in the doctrine of evolution 

 about which Darwin knew very little, but 

 even as regards the genesis of species his 

 theory was never developed in his own 

 hands so far as to account satisfactorily for 

 the genesis of man. It must be borne in 

 mind that while the natural selection of 

 physical variations will go far toward ex- 

 plaining the characteristics of all the plants 

 and all the beasts in the world, it remains 

 powerless to account for the existence of 

 man. Natural selection of physical varia- 

 tions might go on for a dozen eternities 

 without any other visible result than new 



