Chap. IV J NATUEAL SELECTION. 99 



Several writers have misapprehended or objected to 

 the term Natural Selection. Some have even imagined 

 that natural selection induces variability, whereas it 

 implies only the preservation of such variations as arise 

 and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of 

 life. No one objects to agriculturists speaking of the 

 potent effects of man's selection ; and in this case the 

 individual differences given by nature, which man for 

 some object selects, must of necessity first occur. Others 

 have objected that the term selection implies conscious 

 choice in the animals which become modified ; and it 

 has even been urged that, as plants have no volition, 

 natural selection is not applicable to them ! In the literal 

 sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a false 

 term ; but who ever objected to chemists speaking of 

 the elective affinities of the various elements ? —and yet 

 an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with 

 which it in preference combines. It has been said that 

 I speak of natural selection as an active power or Deity ; 

 but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction 

 of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets ? 

 Every one knows what is meant and is implied by such 

 metaphorical expressions ; and they are almost necessary 

 for brevity. So again it is difficult to avoid personifying 

 the word Nature ; but I mean by Nature, only the aggre- 

 gate action and product of many natural laws, and by 

 laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. With 

 a little familiarity such superficial objections will be 

 forgotten. 



We shall best understand the probable course of natural 

 selection by taking the case of a country undergoing 

 some slight physical change, for instance, of climate. 

 The proportional numbers of its inhabitants will almost 



