STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 93 



■writers severally took of the variations from among 

 which they are alike agreed that a selection or quasi- 

 selection is made. 



It now appears that there is not one natural selec- 

 tion, and one survival of the fittest only, but two 

 ■natural selections, and two survivals of the fittest, the 

 one of which may be objected to as an expression more 

 fit for religious and general literature than for science, 

 but may still be admitted as sound in intention, while 

 the other, inasmuch as it supposes accident to be the 

 main purveyor of variations, has no correspondence 

 with the actual course of things ; for if the variations 

 are matters of chance or hazard unconnected with any 

 principle of constant application, they will not occur 

 steadily enough, throughout a sufiicient number of 

 successive generations, nor to a sufficient number of 

 individuals for many generations- together at the same 

 time and place, to admit of the fixing and permanency 

 of modification at all. The one theory of natural 

 selection, therefore, may, and indeed will, explain the 

 facts that surround us, whereas the other will not. 

 Mr. Charles Darwin's contribution to the theory of 

 evolution was not, as is commonly supposed, " natural 

 selection," but the hypothesis that natural selection 

 from variations that are in the main fortuitous could 

 accumulate and result in specific and generic dif- 

 ferences. 



In the foregeing paragraph I have given the point 

 of difference between Mr. Charles Darwin and his pre- 

 decessors. Why, I wonder, have neither he nor any 

 of his exponents put this difference before us in such 



