234 DESIGN IN NATURE 



NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL SELECTION CONTRASTED AND CONSIDERED 



Natural selection assigns to plants and animals a power to vary, and to discriminate, select, and perpetuate 

 what is best in themselves, to the suppression and exclusion of the less useful or doubtful parts. 



While no plant or animal, from the lowest to the highest, can be regarded as a mere automaton mechanically 

 formed, mechanically set in motion, and mechanically kept in motion, so, on the other hand, no plant or animal, 

 from the lowest to the highest, can be credited with the power of selecting and perpetuating the best properties in 

 itself, to the exclusion of the less desirable properties, in the so-called struggle for existence. Plants and animals 

 cannot alter their original constitutions : even man cannot add a cubit to his stature, however much he may desire 

 to do so. 



Natural selection, strictly speaking, is the counterpart, or rather the opposite, of artificial selection, but there 

 is no proof that natural selection exists. Artificial selection, as is well known, impUes the presence and existence 

 of a selector or discriminator ; a judge who detects, assorts, and combines excellences in individuals of different 

 sexes by crossing or inter-breeding. It improves breeds by combining and perpetuating excellences in different 

 individuals. The selector is outside, or apart from, the thing selected. Natural selection, however, claims a 

 power, and a very important one, not recognised in artificial selection ; it claims that individual plants and 

 animals, from the lowest to the highest, can select, combine, and perpetuate their own excellences, as apart from sex 

 and crossing, and in the absence of a selector, discriminator, and judge. Natural selection in this higher and more 

 extended sense is a misnomer, and there is absolutely no proof of its existence. If the power to select exists, 

 it must be referred to something outside the plant and animal. It can, as a matter of fact, only be referred to 

 the maker, director, and upholder of the plant and animal. 



I am aware that the males of animals in many cases fight for the possession of certain females, and that 

 females prefer certain males, which is a kind of selection ; but this is quite a different thing from saying that the 

 males and females select and perpetuate what are regarded as the best qualities or properties in themselves. In 

 reality no such selection is possible. The males and females respectively are to be regarded as aggregates, and 

 they have no power to select and perpetuate certain properties or quahties (essentially details of themselves), as 

 apart from these aggregates. In mating, even in man, the motives in selecting are frequently frivolous and sordid 

 in character, and in no sense calculated to bring out the best qualities of the race. This has only to be stated to 

 be endorsed. One can readily understand how a living plant or animal can be improved by artificial selection, and 

 by the blending of good points in two or more individuals of opposite sexes, aided by suitable pabulum, surroundings, 

 and training ; but it is incomprehensible that natural selection can secure the propagation and perpetuation of the 

 best qualities in one and the same individual, and as apart from sex and the conditions referred to. Natural 

 selection cannot be regarded as the main factor in evolution, and evolution itself only obtains in a restricted sense, 

 and as applied to the types and sub-tj^es of plants and animals. 



There is no such thing as an unbroken descent of plants and animals from one and the same tiny speck of 

 primitive protoplasm by infinite permutations in practically endless time. All that can be said is that the types 

 and sub-types of plants and animals are capable of improvement within limits. In this sense evolution (if 

 admitted) carries with it the possibility of progress. The best parts in plants may be artificially cultivated, and 

 the best traits in animals artificially developed by training and other means. 



In this restricted sense, evolution would account for the education and progress of civilised man in every 

 department of his being ; for his intellectual, social, moral, and religious advances. It would account for the 

 modifications and improvements in cultivated plants and in domestic animals. It would account for improvements 

 under favourable conditions, and for retrogression and breeding back under unfavourable conditions, in wild 

 plants and animals. It would lend itself to law and order both as regards progression and retrogression ;' the rule 

 being advance, with occasional retrogression in particular cases and under pecuhar circumstances. 



That the scheme of creation, as we know it, is progressive and continuous is proved by the histories of 

 existing plants and animals, by the presence in the crust of the earth of large numbers of fossils, in many cases 

 of rudimentary extinct plants and animals, by the formation of sedimentary, volcanic, and other rocks in ancient 

 and recent times, &c. The scheme is a well-ordered and supervised one. It completely eliminates the element 

 of chance. It provides for everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. It is a case of the 

 Creator everywhere m time and space, and of accident and blind chance nowhere. An all-powerful over-ruling 

 vigilant Creator, Supervisor, and Upholder is an absolute necessity in the Cosmos as revealed to us and as we 

 behold it. 



