STATEMENt OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 89^ 



that animals and plants descend -with modification ; 

 all agree that the fittest alone survive ; all agree about 

 the important consequences of the geometrical ratio of 

 increase ; Mr. Charles Darwin has said more about 

 these last two points than his predecessors did, but all 

 three were alike cognisant of the facts and attached 

 the same importance to them, and would have been 

 astonished at its being supposed possible that they 

 disputed them. The fittest alone survive ; yes — but 

 the fittest from among what ? Here comes the point 

 of divergence ; the fittest from among organisms whose 

 variations arise mainly through use and disuse ? In 

 other words, from variations that are mainly functional ? 

 Or from among organisms whose variations are in the 

 main matters of luck ? From variations into which a 

 moral and intellectual system of payment according to 

 results has largely entered ? Or from variations which 

 have been thrown for with dice ? From variations 

 among which, though cards tell, yet play tells as much 

 or more ? Or from those in which cards are every- 

 thing and play goes for so little as to be not worth 

 taking into account ? Is " the survival of the fittest " 

 to be taken as meaning " the survival of the luckiest " 

 or " the survival of those who know best how to turn 

 fortune to account " ? Is luck the only element of 

 fitness, or is not cunning even more indispensable ? 



Mr. Darwin has a habit, borrowed, perhaps, mutatis 

 mutandis, from the framers of our collects, of every 

 now and then adding the words "through natural 

 selection," as though this squared everything, and 

 descent with modification thus became his theory at 



