SEPTEMBER 1, 1899. ] 
fied piece of country; heath and cistus will spring 
up in the dry, flags and rushes in the marshy, 
ground. * * * Two artists or two anglers may 
be in each other’s way, but an artist and an an- 
gler will hardly incommode each other. A 
garden would still interest a fly-catcher if there 
were neither pease nor cherries in it, provided 
the insects remained. Natural selection, as dis- 
tinet from subjective selection, comes into play 
only when two anglers contend for the same 
fish, two artists compete for the same prizes; 
when the early bird gets the worm that the later 
one must go without.”’ 
So far all seems clear, except that the seeds 
that fall by the wayside do not seem to have 
much opportunity to escape from natural selec- 
tion, or to exercise their teleological factors, 
although Ward fails to tell us what will happen 
if the would-be artist has mistaken his vocation, 
or if the family of the fisherman are suffering 
because of his absence while he is looking for 
likely pools. As for the geologist, who seems 
to have dropped out of sight, he is an illustra- 
tion of natural selection, for, as Berkeley has 
pointed out, ‘‘ the work of science is to unravel 
our prejudices and mistakes, untwisting the 
closest connections, distinguishing things that 
are different, instead of confused and perplexed 
giving us distinct views; gradually correcting 
our judgment and reducing it to a philosophical 
exactness.’? The correction of our natural re- 
sponses and their reduction to a philosophical 
exactness by the suppression of those that are 
confused and perplexed and the preservation of 
those that are definite and exact, and, ultima- 
tely, by the extinction of the deluded minds 
and the survival of those that are sane, is what 
the naturalist means by natural selection. 
When we consider how maryellous are the 
activities of a living organism, and how far the 
wisest man is from perfect knowledge of even 
the simplest organic mechanism, it is clear that 
we cannot hope for much from its attempts to 
give intelligent help in its own production ; and 
Ward tells us that the condition of progress 
‘seems provided, without any need for a clear 
prevision of ends or any feeling after improve- 
ment or perfection as such, simply by the wan- 
ing of familiar pleasures and by the zest of 
novelty. In the midst of plenty it is usual to 
(SCIENCE. 291 
become dainty and to make efforts to secure 
better fare, even though the old can be had 
without them.’’ 
‘¢ Thus—even if there were no natural selec- 
tion of variations fortuitously occurring, and 
even if there were no struggle for subsistence, 
still—the will to live, the spontaneous restric- 
tion of each individual to so much of the com- 
mon environment as evokes reaction by its 
hedonic effects (with the increasing adaptation 
and adjustment that will thus ensue) and, 
finally, the pursuit of betterment to which 
satiety urges and novelty prompts—these con- 
ditions, really implying no more than the most 
rudimentary facts of mind, will account for 
definite variations to an apparently unlimited 
extent. What is more, the variations so pro- 
duced, even if there were no others, would 
furnish natural selection with an ample basis as 
soon as struggle for existence began.’’ 
Thus we find that, even if there were no 
natural selection, the principle of self-conserva- 
tion, and the principle of the zest of novelty— 
selfishness and want of steadfastness—are 
enough to bring about exquisite adjustment 
of each living thing to its environment. To 
this, exhaustive analysis of Ward’s two volumes 
brings us down, and from this, he assures us, a 
rational synthesis builds up the philosophy of 
idealism ; for nothing is easier than for one who 
is not a naturalist to improve upon the work of 
‘Charles Darwin. 
The naturalist may be disposed to ask, how- 
ever, whether unselfish interest in the welfare 
of the race and of posterity may not be at least 
as important in the history of organic evolution 
as ‘the teleological principle of self-conserva- 
tion.’ Inasmuch as innumerable species have 
been exterminated for each one which now sur- 
vives, and inasmuch as it can be proved that the 
genetic lines of most of the living organisms that 
now exist are destined to rapid extinction, it is 
clear that, as a matter of fact, most living things 
that have had a part in the selection of their en- 
vironment have made more or less of a mess of 
it; for no one except a philosopher can lose 
sight of the truth that aptitude for experience 
is not, unfortunately, the same as aptitude for 
beneficial experience. It is at most no harder 
to acquire pernicious experience than to acquire 
