
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 3 
and unerring power of ‘‘natural selection,’’* biologists 
believe has been a considerable factor, if not the chief 
factor, in the evolution of the various species of plants and 
animals from a common ancestor.t 
Darwin was far from claiming for natural selection a 
universal or an all-powerful action. He admitted that 
other factors might be at work in the modification of 
species, and in his book on the ‘“‘ Descent of Man”’ he 
showed that many characters in animals which cannot be 
explained by the action of natural selection, are doubtless 
due to “‘sexual selection,” the continuous selection by the 
one sex of those individuals of the other which possess 
certain attractive features or habits. Darwin also acknow- 
ledged to a minor extent the modifying influences of the 
Lamarckian principles of ‘use and disuse,’ and the 
action of the environment. 
Some of the more recent and more advanced evolutionists, 
however, may be said to out-Darwin Darwin. They 
apparently go further than their master did in their belief 
in the all-powerful action of natural selection, and some 
of the recent essays on evolution have drawn attention to 
this ultra-Darwinian position, and have urged the claims 
of other factors upon the consideration of biologists. 
Perhaps the contribution to this subject which has become 
* Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan has recently (Bristol Naturalists’ Society’s Proc., 
vol. v., pt. iii., 1888) proposed the term ‘‘ Natural Elimination” as being more 
correct. He is quite right, but ‘‘ Natural Selection” is now too firmly 
established in biological science to be replaced by another phrase. However, 
Prof. Morgan’s term may be of use as an alternative. 
+ Mz. P. Geddes informs me that he intends shortly to lay before the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh a detailed statement of his view, that evolution is the 
result not so much of a natural selection brought about by a struggle for 
existence as of self-sacrifice, co-operation and love. This is striking at the root 
of Darwinism with a vengeance; but it is needless to discuss Mr. Geddes’s 
position until his paper is published and the facts upon which he bases his 
theory are before us. 
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