FACTORS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION 33 



The idea of organic evolution, which Newman never 

 accepted, Lad been promulgated before hio birth. 



Despite these names, and that of Mr. Wallace, 

 there is one man, and one alone, to whom belongs 

 the enduring honour of establishing this principle 

 as part of recognised Truth, and that man is Charles 

 Darwin. The "Darwinian theory" is not that 

 animal and vegetable species have evolved ; it is 

 not that man is descended from a monkey; it is 

 that an important factor in such evolution is natural 

 selection. 



If we observe the progeny of any generation of 

 animals or plants we find that they vary some- 

 what, on the average, from their parents. Some 

 of these variations are favourable, others unfavour- 

 able, to the life of the possessor. If, then, there 

 be not room for all, the fittest will survive, the 

 word fittest having no moral connotation, not mean- 

 ing the best, but the best-adapted to the environment. 

 The reverse of this proposition — that the unfittest 

 should survive — is inconceivable, as Spencer observes: 

 so that the survival of the fittest, being a proposi- 

 tion the negation of which is inconceivable, is a 

 " truth of the highest certainty." 



Now let us most clearly understand that the 

 Darwinian theory has nothing of the inevitable 

 about it : since the conditions that make it possible 

 ina}' not be satisfied. If, for instance, the environ- 

 ment be so favourable, enemies so few, food so 

 abundant, that all variations not absolutely disabling 

 can survive and propagate their like, then natural 

 selection is abrogated : universal survival replaces 

 survival of the fittest. It is, perhaps, if we knew 



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