Darwin s Artificial and Natural Selection 119 



the results of artificial and natural selection leaves no room 

 for doubt as to his meaning. Darwin himself seems, at 

 times, not unconscious of the weakness of this comparison. 

 He says : " How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man ! 

 how short his time ! and consequently how poor will be his 

 results, compared with those accumulated by Nature during 

 whole geological periods. Can we wonder then that Nature's 

 productions should be far ' truer ' in character than man's 

 productions ; that they should be infinitely better adapted to 

 the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear 

 the stamp of far higher workmanship ? " We should not 

 lose sight of the fact that even after the most rigorous selec- 

 tive process has been brought to bear on organisms, namely, 

 by isolation under domestication, we do not apparently find 

 ourselves gradually approaching nearer and nearer to the 

 formation of new species, but we find, on the contrary, that 

 we have produced something quite different. In the light of 

 this truth, the relation between the two selective theories 

 may appear quite different from the interpretation that Dar- 

 win gives of it. We may well doubt whether nature does 

 select so much better than does man, and whether she has 

 ever made new species in this way. 



We come now to a point that touches the theory of natural 

 selection in a very vital spot. 



" It may be well here to remark that with all beings there 

 must be much fortuitous destruction, which can have little or 

 no influence on the course of natural selection. For instance, 

 a vast number of eggs or seeds are annually devoured, and 

 these could be modified through natural selection only if they 

 varied in some manner which protected them from their 

 enemies. Yet many of these eggs or seeds would perhaps, if 

 not destroyed, have yielded individuals better adapted to their 

 conditions of life than any of those which happened to sur- 

 vive. So again a vast number of mature animals and plants, 

 whether or not they be the best adapted to their conditions, 



