

TOWER, DARWINISM, 44] 
The proposition formulated at the beginning of this paper underlies 
all aspects of the Natural Selection problem, and upon whatever 
solution is found for it will depend subsequent and special applications 
of the Natural Selection Hypothesis, especially in relation to changed 
environments, migrations and other conditions affecting organisms. 
It is evident that investigations of survival and elimination must 
be first oriented so as to prevent the entrance of complications 
that might come from the study of these phenomena in any. other 
than in a normal environment. It was for this reason that the 
observations and experiments briefly presented in this paper were 
located and conducted as described. The results are the product 
of what was taking placein these plants and animals under their 
normal conditions. This information was a prerequisite for other 
experiments involving altered conditions of environment, for without 
knowing what occurred normally in their original habitats, no 
logical conclusion could be reached concerning what transpired in 
other experiments. 
In all of the species of animals and plants subjected to obser- 
vation and experiment, the results were surprisingly uniform. showing 
that the eliminations in the normal habitats were definitely a function 
of chance position relative to eliminating forces, with no evidence 
of survivals based upon adaptive characteristics. The uniform nature 
of this action appears clearer when the massed activity through a 
series of years and generations is observed than it does when a 
single generation is considered, because the conditions of two 
successive generations are not identical, any more than the growing 
seasons of two years are the same, and, in consequence, the details 
in these observations differ with generation, year and location. 
The statement is often made that with increasingly adverse con- 
ditions it is the extremes in the population that are eliminated, 
until, under the most adverse conditions it is only the average 
individuals of the population that can survive. This is another pro- 
blem, involving the normal eliminative activities plus the effect of 
adverse conditions, but in this effect of a composite of processes, 
the survival of extremes was as dependent upon chance position 
under adverse conditions as was survival under normal relations, 
