CHAP, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM l8l 



Moreover, it seems very doubtful whether Mr. 

 Sutherland is entitled to assume that natural selec- 

 tion has developed sympathy, but has developed it 

 in uncertain measure, so that it may be perhaps too 

 much in amount, perhaps too little. Natural selec- 

 tion has taught the lower and the higher animals 

 exactly how many offspring to produce. Why has it 

 not taught me exactly how much sympathy I am to 

 feel ? Why has it developed a force uncertain in 

 amount and working ? Unless because, after all, 

 spirit is different from nature; because it is incon- 

 ceivable that natural selection, and natural selection 

 alone, has "out of darkness" stretched forth "the 

 hands that reach through nature, moulding men." 



Again, let us note that two qualities have been 

 selected two seemingly if not really opposite quali- 

 ties egoism and altruism. 1 How may this be? 

 Nature has really been selecting men, not qualities, 

 men (or societies of men) who are the sum of all 

 their qualities. Nature is regarded as a hanging 

 judge. Every crime in her calendar is a capital 

 offence. If nature is not satisfied with you, "off 

 with his head," she cries; and forthwith you are 

 thrust out. Nature has not been selecting one quality 

 at a time ; she has been selecting aggregate fitness. 

 It is lawful to study the process one quality at a time, 

 if you like. But you must keep in mind that that is 

 your own "abstraction." The only question with 

 nature has been, first and last, who is in the aggre- 

 gate fittest to survive ? Fitness has been selected, 

 not quality A tending to fitness, nor quality B tend- 

 ing to fitness, but A + B+ . . . M. And again, from 



1 Mr. Sutherland thinks the latter word stilted, and avoids it. 



