440 Scientific Intelligence. 
nature, a deeper-seated and innnate principle, to the operation of which Natural 
Selection is merely an adjunct. 
recent, cannot furnish a species which has had a wider geographical distribu- 
i i e extreme 
sed through a long 
changes of climatal conditions, than the Mammoth. If species are so unstable, 
and so susceptible of mutation through such influences, why does at extinct 
form stand out so signally a monument of stability? By his admirable re- 
h of the biological sciences of his day; he has laid the foundations of a 
Entertaining ourselves the opinion that something more than natural 
selection is requisite to account for the orderly production and succession 
of species, we offer two incidental remarks upon the above extract. 
First, we find in it,—in the phrase “ Natural Selection, or a process of 
variation from external influences,”—an example of the very common 
confusion of two distinct things, viz., variation and natural selection. 
The former has never yet been shown to have its cause in “ external influ- 
ences,” nor to occur at random. As we have elsewhere insisted, if not 
inexplicable, it has never been explained; all we can yet say 1s, that 
plants and animals are prone to vary, and that some conditions favor 
variation. Perhaps in this Dr. Falconer may yet find what he seeks: for 
“it is difficult to believe that there is not in [its] nature, a deeper-seated 
and innate principle, to the operation of which Natural Selection is merely 
an adjunct.” The latter, which is the ensemble of the external influences, 
including the competition of the individuals themselves, picks out certain 
variations as they arise, but in no proper sense can be said to ongiate 
em. 
Secondly, although we are not quite sure how Dr. Falconer intends to 
apply the law of phyllotaxis to illustrate his idea, we fancy that a perti- 
in this 
7 
one s me of the Tort period in the 
se ere Oe, the vegeiation of the Tertiary pone © 
- southeast of France rnb Count Gaston de Saporta, published in the Ann. 
