loo LUCK, OR CUNNING ? 



tion, &c." Mr. Darwin probably said "a power re- 

 presented by natural selection " instead of " natural 

 selection " only, because he saw that to talk too 

 frequently about the fact that the most lucky live 

 longest as " intently watching " something was greater 

 nonsense than it would be prudent even for him to 

 write, so he fogged it by making the intent watching 

 done by " a power represented by " a fact, instead of 

 by the fact itself. As the sentence stands it is just 

 as great nonsense as it would have been if "the 

 survival of the fittest " had been allowed to do the 

 watching instead of " the power represented by " the 

 survival of the fittest, but the nonsense is harder to 

 dig up, and the reader is more likely to pass it over. 



This passage gave Mr. Darwin no less trouble than 

 it must have given to many of his readers. In the 

 original edition of the " Origin of Species " it stood, 

 "Further, we must suppose that there is a power 

 always intently watching each slight accidental varia- 

 tion." I suppose it was felt that if this was allowed 

 to stand, it might be fairly asked what natural selec- 

 tion was doing all this time ? If the power was 

 able to do everything that was necessary now, why 

 not always ? and why any natural selection at all ? 

 This clearly would not do, so in i86r the power was 

 allowed, by the help of brackets, actually to become 

 natural selection, and remained so till 1869, when 

 Mr. Darwin could stand it no longer, and, doubtless 

 for the reason given above, altered the passage to " a 

 power represented by natural selection," at the same 

 time cutting out the word "accidental." 



