SELECTION 167 



touching each other, and driven inward by 

 incessant blows." . . . "It may be meta- 

 phorically said that natural selection is 



rlnily pnd hourly gprirh'nw.i'ng 



"Battle within battle must be continually 

 recurring with varying success; and yet in 

 the long run the forces are sp mW|y 

 that the imprest. trifl p wnuld givp fhp 

 tQ one organ \p being ovfif f^no^ber . ' ' 



What we wish to suggest is, that Darwin's 

 characteristic ii^ndamental idea of the in- 

 JjT^nv of interrelations in the web ofTTfe, 

 lies below the idea of the struggle for exist- 

 ence, and therefore below the idea of natural 

 selection. Unless we appreciate the funda- 

 mental natural history fact of the web of life, 

 we cannot rightly understand how slight 

 nan be -frf ^ritirnl 



J^|pripi*nirig gnrtTTvql The entanglements 

 are so intricate that a slight variation may be 

 of survival-value to its possessor. 



There is another consideration which 

 Darwin had certainly in mind, and which, 

 like that just explained, has often been lost 

 sight of since. It is illustrated, for instance, 

 by the researches of Bumpus and of Cramp- 

 ton on the survival of sparrows and pupse 

 respectively. The point was, that the_sur-^ 

 vivors seemed to survive, not because of 



