38 ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



the reader to the chapter of Dr. Vernon's " Variation 

 in Animals and Plants," l which he entitles " The 

 Action of Natural Selection on Variations." 



It has already been noted that Darwin's original 

 term, " Natural Selection," was hardly satisfactory. 

 It was not self-explanatory, and it seemed to point 

 to some conscious agency which selects. We may, 

 therefore, ask how it was that Darwin came to 

 employ this term. The answer is that he desked 

 to express the parallel between natural selection 

 and artificial selection. His study of animals and 

 plants under domestication taught him, not merely 

 that species are capable of profound modifications 

 (the pouter pigeon, the race-horse), but also the 

 lesson which it remained for an open-minded 

 thinker to learn therefrom — that what conscious 

 agency accomplishes in such cases other agencies 

 may be conceived to accomplish in the case of 

 animals and plants that live in natural conditions. 

 The phrase natural selection, and the idea it em- 

 bodies, offer a conspicuous instance of the really 

 fruitful and scientific use of the argument from 

 analogy, which has been misleading men ever since 

 they started to think. The difference between the 

 Darwinian and, say, the Socratic employment of 

 analogical reasoning — to instance the name of its 

 first conspicuous advocate — is that Darwin, led to a 

 possible inference by analogy, was not content to 

 accept it without question, but spent decades in 

 applying his unsurpassed powers of observation and 

 his impeccable fidelity in confirming it by that right 

 1 Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. 



