Chap. IV.] NATURAL 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. ITo 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 lit-' 

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

 felse term; but who ever objected to chemists speaking 

 \i the elective affinities of the various elements? — ^and 

 Vet an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with 

 « hich 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 personify- 

 ing the word Nature; but I mean by Nature, only the 

 aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and 

 by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. 

 W^ith 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 under- 

 j,»oing some slight physical change, for instance, of 

 climate. The proportional numbers of its inhabitants 



