134 THE FALLACIES OF NATURAL SELECTION. 



ever recurring, he alleges, a fearful struggle for Exist- 

 ence (brought on by adverse conditions, want of food, 

 and the severe competition consequent upon the ratio 

 of increase of living beings), in which the weak suc- 

 cumb, and "the strongest and most vigorous" survive. 

 These "strongest and most vigorous" being the ones, 

 exclusively, which continue the line of descent, in- 

 crease in development, he contends, must obviously 

 follow. The indefinitely- continued accumulation of 

 increments of development so occasioned, explains, he 

 says, the process by which the lower species have 

 been evolved into the higher. 



Darwin's other mode of getting units of develop- 

 ment for Natural Selection to accumulate to an indefi- 

 nite extent, is, not by any argument from Natural 

 Selection, but by assuming that marked variations — 

 similar to the "sports" which appear under domestica- 

 tion — arise under nature, at least once in the course of 

 thousands of generations. Then he contends that 

 Natural Selection preserves and accumulates these 

 marked variations to an unlimited or indefinite extent, 

 and so evolves the species one from another. 



Now, it is intended to show, in this chapter, * 



First : That Natural Selection, or "the survival of 

 the stronger and more vigorous," does not prove any, 

 even the slightest advance in development, or any, 

 even the slightest variation. 



Second: It is intended to show that even though 

 slight advances in development, or variations, were 

 proven by "the survival of the stronger and more vig- 

 orous,'' or were proven in any way; and even though 



