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weaker or less healthy sisters.* Strength on the one hand, and precocity on the other, are wedded together. Now, it is supposed that by this means the most vigorous adults produce the most vigorous offspring of the year. The evidence quoted in support of this view goes to show that the first brood is stronger than the second, but it does not necessarily follow from this that the offspring of a less precocious female will not be as vigorous as the offspring of those who are the first to wake to the dream of love. But we will suppose, for the sake of argument, that it is so that the earliest broods are the strongest and the best in every way. Then it may be well to take note that it is just these broods which are liable to be destroyed through the agency of a fickle and uncertain climate. The love-making of the North-American grouse commences habitually before the snow has completely disappeared. This affords no difficulty if there is no return of wintry weather; but a few days of exceptional warmth are sometimes followed by a return of cold northern blasts, accompanied by snow. The result is fatal to the already hatched chicks, and no less to the as yet unhatched eggs; so much so, that in one season there were three or four coveys of quail within a radius of sixty miles, where thousands had been the year before. Maternal solicitude avails nothing in such a catastrophe, as is brought home to us most pathetically by the story of the frozen bird found sitting on her frozen eggs.t

Where the destruction is not so universal, where only the most precocious suffer, it is obvious that if there is any force in the argument for their superiority, a treacherous spring may bring about not the survival, but the destruction, of the best and fittest.

* Darwin. Descent of Man. p. 213.

+ The Nineteenth Century. vol. xxxiii., pp. 601-2.

Gregariousness in cattle, combined with the struggle for existence, tends, according to Mr. F. Galton, to check independence of character.

"We have seen that it is the cattle who graze apart, as well as those who lead the herd, who are recognised by the trainers of cattle as gifted with enough independence of character to become fore-oxen. They are even preferred to the actual leaders of the herd, because, as they dare to move alone, their independence is the more conspicuous. Now the leaders are safe enough from lions, because their flanks and rear are guarded by their followers; but each of those who graze apart, and who represent the superabundant supply of self-reliant animals, have one flank and the rear exposed, and it is precisely these whom the lions take. Looking at the matter in a broad way, we may justly assert that wild beasts trim and prune every herd into compactness, and tend to reduce it into a closely united body with a single well-protected leader. The development of independence of character in cattle is thus suppressed far below its healthy natural standard by the influence of wild beasts, as is shown by the greater display of self-reliance among cattle whose ancestry, for some generations, have not been exposed to such danger."-(Macmillan's Magazine. vol. xxiii., p.356.)

But all this is perfectly irregular from the point of view of the survival of the fittest, and the advocate of the theory ought to be as much surprised at such a phenomenon as the Northern farmer was when he found that he had to die, while senseless old Jones and thriftless young Robins were permitted to live.

Do godamoighty knaw what a's doing a-taäkin' o'meä?
I beänt wonn as saws 'ere a beän an' yonder a pëä;
An' Squoire 'ull be sa mad an' all-a' dear a' dear!
And l'a managed for Squoire coom Michaelmas thutty year.
A mowt 'a taäen owd Joänes, as 'ant a aäpoth o' sense,
Or a mowt 'a taäen young Robins--a niver mended a fence."
-(Tennyson. The Northern Farmer. Old Style.)

The evidence cited above will surely afford some ground for supposing that it is not an absurd superstition to believe that there is such a thing as accidental death. Mr. Huxley as we have seen in a passage quoted on page 27-is indignant that Mr. Darwin "should have been

charged with having attempted to reinstate the old pagan goddess, Chance. It is said that he supposes that the fittest survive the chances of the struggle for existence." It is sufficient for the argument which has been urged, that death in nature should be to some extent blindfold and indiscriminative, so far as the survival of the fittest is concerned; but apart from all these considerations, the issue between death and life is often a matter of accident. In the one case the course of the victim happens to miss, and in the other case to encounter, the course of some destructive agency. That risk has been abundantly proved to exist with regard to the organic world. If it is superstitious not to shut our eyes to the most obvious facts of experience and not to argue as if they did not exist, there are many who would feel honoured by being designated by that opprobrious epithet.

Mr. Wallace, who pleads that we must get rid of the idea of accidental death, asserts that, if all animals were exactly alike, death would be accidental. But the facts show that a great deal of death is accidental, though organisms vary so greatly. Those who are fond of repeating the dictum that survivors, by the mere fact of their survival, prove themselves to be the "fittest," would do well to amend their statement, and to assert that such survivors are either the fittest or the most fortunate— which is a different affair altogether.

(c) "ON THE WHOLE" AND "IN THE LONG RUN."

"[Bilologists who chase

[A halting theory] through time and space."

-COWPER (slightly altered).

If there is any force in the arguments which have been used in the preceding sections, it is obvious that there is

not in nature that "power of selection" which is the very essence of the theory of Natural Selection. But it would be unjust to dismiss the consideration of this subject without giving a careful consideration to the remarkable contention, that what is not accomplished in a limited space or time may be confidently anticipated to take place on the whole and in the long run.

Mr. Darwin contends that on his hypothesis the variations which take place in nature must be slight, and that the validity of his theory depends on this assumption. At the same time he recognises that there is a great amount of variation displayed by the individuals of a species at the present day. But instead of accepting this result as a proof of the weakness of his theory, he appeals, from the narrow experience of the present, to the large results of all time.

"On the theory of Natural Selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in Natural History, Natura non facit saltum. This canon, if we look to the present inhabitants of the world, is not strictly correct; but if we may include all those of past times, whether known or unknown, it must on this theory be strictly true."—(Origin of Species. p. 166.)

One can hardly trust oneself to make any remark on this passage, for fear of incurring the charge of misrepresentation, but the statement seems to amount to this. That which is false of a part of the organic world becomes true if you take in the whole. It is as though you were to say: A portion of the population has red hair, it is not true to say that they have all dark complexions; but if you include the whole nation from its earliest history to the present day, it will be found "strictly true" that they are all dark-complexioned.

Speaking of the lapse of time, Mr. Darwin says :— "The mere lapse of time by itself does nothing either for or against Natural Selection. I say this because it has been erro

neously asserted that the element of time has been assumed by me to play an all-important part in modifying species."

But this denial only extends to the hypothesis that "all the forms of life are necessarily undergoing change through some innate law." For he goes on at once to

assert :

"Lapse of time is only so far important-and its importance in this respect is great-that it gives a better chance of beneficial variations arising, and of their being selected, accumulated and fixed."—(Origin of Species. p. 82.)

Now, if the process of the transmutation of species by Natural Selection were always slow but, at the same time, sure in each generation, it is obvious not only that time would be required, but also that time would be successful in bringing about the desired change. But if, as we have seen, the conditions of life do not secure the necessary power of selection in each generation, how can a repetition of failures make an ultimate success? Mr. Wallace uses the same argument with respect to accidental death.

"Although in many individual cases death may be due to chance rather than to any inferiority in those which die first, yet we cannot possibly believe that this can be the case on the large scale on which nature works."-(Darwinism. p. 122.)

On what principle, we venture to ask, does Mr. Wallace assume the universality of a discriminative death-because nature works on so large a scale? Whence have the observers of nature obtained their evidence of accidental death if not from every sphere of organic life, from the rapidly-increasing aphis to the slow-breeding elephant and man? Is it because spheres of nature remain to be explored? But surely we can only anticipate in unexplored spheres the action of the principles with which we are already acquainted in spheres which

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