^lTmimrti0it inxa Sclcrtioit. 



By PEOF. C. LLOYD MORGAN. 



> 



Bead April r>th, 1888. 



rriHORE who have read the reoently-publishod " Life of 

 -L Charles Darwin " may remember a footnote in which 

 Mr. A. B,. Wallace criticizes the phrase " Natural Soksctiou." 

 "The tonii ' Survival of the Eitteat,' " ho says, "is the plain 

 expresssion of the fact ; ' Natural Selection ' is a meta- 

 phorical expression of it, and to a certain degree indirect 

 and incorrect, since Nature does not so much select special 

 varieties as exterminate the most unfavourable ones."* 

 Mr. Darwin, while admitting with his wonted candour the 

 force of this criticism, urges in sn|)i)ort of the use of liis 

 own phrase, first, that it can be employed as a substantive 

 governing a verb : secondly, that it serves to connect 

 artificial and natural selection ; and thirdljr,t that its moan- 

 ing is not obvious, and that this loads men to think the 

 matter out for themselves. 



I propose here briefly to consider Mr. Wallace's criticism; 

 to suggest ))rovisionally the use of the phrase, "Natural 

 Elimination," which can be employed as a substantive 

 " governing a verb " ; and to indicate the advantages which 



' Lite," vol. iii., p. 40. 



t Vol. ii., p. 278. 



273 



