158 THE FALLACIES OP NATURAL SELECTION. 



orous"), Natural Selection would never have enjoyed 

 the reputation it has had, of being such a grand and 

 important principle. 



Second: Assuming, however, that the mere Selec- 

 tion, of " the stronger and more vigorous," does prove 

 the appearance of slight increments of development, 

 still his argument, that these may be so accumulated 

 as to evolve higher species from ones lower in the 

 scale, both begs the question at issue, and is negatived, 

 in two several ways, by the very argument itself of 

 Natural Selection. It begs the question," by tacitly 

 assuming, that these slight increments of development 

 are new developments, and that they may be accumu- 

 lated indefinitely, or without any assignable limit ; and, 

 conversely, by assuming, that they are not the mere 

 regain of developments, once lost by the given species, 

 and that they are not capable, only of being accumu- 

 lated to an extent, commensurate with the past degen- 

 eration of such species. 



The argument itself of Natural Selection negatives 

 this assumption, — viz., that these increments are new 

 developments, — by postulating the necessary depend- 

 ence, of Natural Selection, upon a hard Struggle for 

 Existence which manifestly implies previous degenera- 

 tion, in the organisms displaying the slight advances ; 

 and Natural Selection itself implies, that any such 

 increments of development which may arise in " the 

 stronger and more vigorous," are the mere regain, by 

 means of the law of reversion, of what was before 

 lost. For, the argument of Natural Selection abso- 

 lutely requires, that the Struggle for Existence — which 



