Xlvi THE DARWIN CENTENARY. [February s. 



Natural selection, or " Darwinism," is usually spoken of as if it 

 were the only factor of evolution which Darwin recognized. As a 

 matter of fact only three chapters of the " Origin of Species " 

 were devoted primarily to this subject, whereas three were devoted 

 to variation and its laws, and his great work on the " Variations of 

 Animals and Plants," which he omitted from the " Origin " merely 

 to make the latter a shorter and more readable account, occupies two 

 large volumes. It is particularly unjust and untrue to say that Dar- 

 win's theory of evolution recognized only the negative factor of 

 elimination. In reading the criticisms of Darwin's theory one 

 cannot fail to be impressed with the fact that many of the critics 

 do not know Darwin's works. Let us hope that one of the results 

 of the Darwin anniversaries which are being held this year through- 

 out the civilized world will be to induce people generally, and the 

 critics in particular, to read and re-read Darwin's books. 



I confess that every time I look into his books it is with some 

 new feeling of surprise and admiration. How thoroughly modern 

 they are in most things ! Apparently they might have been written 

 after the promulgation of Neo-Lamarckism, Neo-Darwinism, muta- 

 tion, orthogenesis and other modern theories, and one feels inclined 

 again and again to look critically at the date of the book. It is an 

 interesting fact that most of the objections which have been ad- 

 vanced in recent years to the Darwinian factors, were considered at 

 length by Darwin in later editions of the " Origin," and it is amusing 

 to read these modern objections and then find the answers to them 

 given by Darwin himself in calm, judicial and convincing manner. 

 One who knows Darwin's works can understand and in a measure 

 sympathize with the enthusiasm of Emerson for Plato, when he 

 said, " In Plato are all things, whether written or thought." 



The positive side of Darwin's theory, and indeed of every other 

 theory of evolution, is the variability of organisms, and the principal 

 question which confronted him, as it confronts every evolutionist 

 today, was this — " What is the nature and what are the causes of 

 variation?" Darwin devoted many years of intense labor to the 

 study of this problem and in his many volumes he brought together 

 a larger amount of information on this subject than has ever been 

 collected by any one man before or since. He concluded that the 



