XIX. 

 ON ARCHJESTHETISM. 



I. THE HYPOTHESIS OF USE AND EFFORT. 



The claims of the theory of Lamarck, that use modifies struct- 

 ure in the animal kingdom, are being more carefully considered 

 than heretofore, and are being admitted in quarters where they 

 have been hitherto neglected or ignored. Eleven years ago I re- 

 stated the question as follows : * 



** The influences and forces which have operated to j^roduce 

 the type-structures of the animal kingdom have been plainlv of 

 two kinds : 1. Originative; 2. Directive. The prime importance 

 of the former is obvious ; that the latter is only secondary in the 

 order of time or succession, is evident from the fact that it con- 

 trols the preservation or destruction of the results or creations of 

 the first. 



*^ Wallace and Darwin have propounded as the cause of modi- 

 fication in descent their law of natural selection. This law has 

 been epitomized by Spencer as the ^survival of the fittest.' Tiiis 

 neat expression no doubt covers the case, but it leaves the origin 

 of the fittest entirely untouched, Darwin assumes a tendency 

 to variation ' in nature, and it is plainly necessary to do this, in 

 order that materials for the exercise of a selection should exist. 

 Darwin and Wallace's law Is, then, only restrictive, directive, con- 

 servative, or destructive of something already created. I propose 

 then to seek for the originative laws by which these subjects are 

 furnished — in other words, for the causes of the origin of the 

 fittest. 



" It has seemed to the author so clear from the first as to re- 

 quire no demonstration, that natural selection includes no actively 

 progressive principle whatever ; that it must first wait for the de- 



* "The Method of Creation," 1871, pp. 2 and 18, Walker Prize Essay, Proceeds. 

 Amer. Phllos. Soc, pp. 230-246. 



