ORGANIC EVOLUTION — THE FACTORS 83 



the survival of the fittest, his less improved competitors, 

 but as far as we know, no man or succession of men 

 have ever observed the whole process in any single 

 case, and certainly no man has ever recorded the 

 observation. Variation by artificial selection of course 

 we know very well ; but the intervention of the cattle 

 breeder and the pigeon fancier is the essence of artificial 

 selection. It is effected by their own action in crossing, 

 by their skill in bringing the right mates together, to 

 produce the progeniture they want. But in Natural 

 Selection who is to supplj^ the breeder's place ? Unless 

 the crossing is properly arranged the new breed will 

 never come into being. What is to secure that the 

 two individuals of opposite sexes in the primeval forest, 

 who have been both accidentally blessed with the same 

 advantageous variation, shall meet and transmit by 

 inheritance that variation to their successors ? Unless 

 this step is made good, the modification will never get 

 a start ; and yet there is nothing to insure that step 

 except pure chance. The law of chances takes the 

 place of the cattle breeder and the pigeon fancier. The 

 biologists do well to ask for an immeasurable expanse 

 of time, if the occasional meetings of advantageously 

 varied couples from age to age are to provide the 

 pedigree of modifications which unite us to our ancestor 

 the jelly-fish. Of course the struggle for existence, and 

 the survival of the fittest, would in the long run secure 

 the predominance of the stronger breed over the weaker. 

 But it would be of no use in setting the improved 

 breed going. Thete would be no time. No possible 

 variation w^hich is known to our experience, in the short 

 time that elapses in a single life between the moment 

 of maturity and the age of reproduction, could enable 

 the varied individual to clear the field of aU com- 

 petitors, either by slaughtering them or starving them 

 out. But unless the struggle for existence took this 

 summary and internecine character, there would be 

 nothing but mere chance to secure that the advantage- 

 ously varied bridegroom at one end of the wood should 

 meet the bride who by a happy contingency had been 

 advantageously varied in the same direction at the 



