CHAP, xvm A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 251 



escaping them, or being taken from them by younger 

 competing creatures of their species who are not run 

 down by accident or infirmity ? Have we any reason 

 to believe that natural death death from old age 

 has ever been common in the animal world (in plants, 

 perhaps, yes) ; or have we any reason to regret its 

 absence ? But, if it plays a scanty part, how could it 

 secure the attention or obtain the approval of select- 

 ing nature ? 



Next let us ask, how we can conceive of the pro- 

 cess of selection being accomplished ? Race A is 

 competing against race B. The prize is fitness to 

 survive ; the penalty, of course, is just death. But 

 race A, being clever enough to invent the habit of 

 dying a natural death, therefore survives, while race 

 B, which refuses to die unless by force, is therefore 

 extinguished. 



This is not altogether such an Irish bull as it 

 sounds. It may be held that a habit in any species 

 of dying a natural death will produce a more efficient 

 average individual. And so it might be possible, 

 given the conditions, to think out the mechanism of 

 the process. Here also, of course, natural selection 

 does not originate the habit in question ; in this case 

 dying. Death may be, as Weismann seems to hint, 

 in obscure physiological correlation with the condi- 

 tions of sexual reproduction. It may be put down as 

 a " chance," i.e. until now an unexplained varia- 

 tion. l One race " happened " to begin dying off, 

 and profited thereby qua race. From it sprang all 



1 Use-inheritance will do nothing here. A habit of dying, after it 

 has been acquired, assuredly cannot be transmitted to offspring ! 



