THE FALLACIES OF NATURAL SELECTION. 153 



to have assented to an implication, that the elect were 

 stronger and more vigorous than their progenitors! 

 Verily, is it, that, by "words, words," alone, Darwin 

 passes " through the safe-gate into the temple of cer- 

 tainty." The touchstone to Darwin's fallacy, that Se- 

 lection, per se, argues any advance in development, — 

 the failure to apply which has led to all the confusion, 

 — is the query : " Stronger and more vigorous ? Com- 

 pared with whom? Their contemporaries only? or 

 their contemporaries and predecessors ?" 



In Paris, under the Commune, when famine and 

 murder vied for the mastery, and in cities stricken with 

 the plague, " the stronger and more vigorous " survived 

 — But, "stronger and more vigorous," compared with 

 whom? Manifestly; compared, not with individuals 

 of the preceding generation, but with those only, placed 

 in the same straits with themselves. 



According to Darwin's argument (?), the more ad- 

 verse and unfavorable the conditions of life are, the 

 greater is the advance in development! because, as he 

 contends, the harder the conditions of life, the more 

 rigid and exclusive will be the Selection! Mephis- 

 topheles doubtless had in mind, this theory of D arwm , 

 when, in his advice to the student, he counseled him 

 to stick to "words," as a theory might well be built of 

 "words." 



That the conditions, under nature, imply a retro- 

 grade movement in those even which are preserved 

 by Natural Selection; and, that, therefore, those con- 

 ditions militate against Darwin's use of the terms 



" stronger and more vigorous " to denote those se- 

 14 



