DARWIN AND NATURAL SELECTION 47 



in the struggle for existence. Here we have 

 the logical experimentum crucis of Darwinism." * 

 It seems more than a little difficult to understand 

 how, save on the Nelsonic principle of applying 

 the telescope to the blind eye, such a claim as 

 that quoted above, that the riddle of existence is 

 solved by natural selection, can be made in the 

 face of such difficulties as those enumerated in the 

 last two quotations, and often urged during the 

 years which have passed since Darwinism first 

 took the field. Let us, however, look a little further 

 into the views of the middle or moderate school 

 of thought. Bateson, the champion of Mendelism, 

 and one of the first biologists in England, states 

 that " to begin with, we must relegate Selection 

 to its proper place. Selection permits the viable 

 to continue, and decides that the non-viable shall 

 perish ; just as the temperature of our atmosphere 

 decides that no liquid carbon shall be found on 

 the face of the earth : but we do not suppose that 

 the form of the diamond has been gradually 

 achieved by a process of Selection. So, again, as 

 the course of descent branches in the successive 

 generations, Selection determines along which 

 branch Evolution shall proceed, but it does not 

 decide what novelties that branch shall bring forth. 

 ' La Nature contient le fonds de toutes ces varieties, 

 mais le hazard ou Part les mettent en ceuvrej as 

 Maupertuis most truly said."f 



And, finally, as far as this point is concerned, the 

 matter is summed up by de Vries, the Professor 



* Driesch, Science and Philosophy of the Organism, p. 267. 

 t Darwin and Modern Science, p. 96. 



