where various kinds of superiority are manifested
in a race, Natural Selection will not act—does not
lead to the belief in a direct action of the medium,
but in the assurance that such a state of things tends to
establish a fixity of species, as already proved from con
sidering what would take place in artificial breeding
if the breeder were foolish enough to select first the fattest,
then the swiftest, and then the strongest, and thus to
imitate a process which must often, if not always, take
place in nature.
If it could be proved that there were only three factors
of Organic Evolution, and that we knew all about them,
the method of argument here applied could not be ac
cepted. But if it should turn out that there were other
factors, which had been overlooked, Mr. Spencer’s argu
ment would be still less tenable ; and we may quote
the author himself against the idea of finality in this
respect:—
“ Inattention and reluctant attention lead to the ignoring of facts
which really exist in abundance, as is well illustrated in the case of
pre-historic implements. Biassed by the current belief that no traces
of man were to be found on the earth’s surface, save in certain
superficial formations of very recent date, geologists and anthropolo
gists not only neglected to seek such traces, but for a long time con
tinued to pooh-pooh those who said they had found them. When
M. Boucher de Perthes at length succeeded in drawing the eyes of
scientific men to the flint implements discovered by him in the
quarternary deposits of the Somme valley, and when geologists and
anthropologists had thus been convinced that evidences of human
existence were to be found in formations of considerable age, and
thereafter began to search for them, they found plenty of them
all over the world. Or, again, to take an instance closely germane to
the matter, we may recall the fact that the contemptuous attitude
towards the hypothesis of Organic Evolution which naturalists in
general maintained before the publication of Mr. Darwin’s work,
prevented them from seeing the multitudinous facts by which it is
supported. Similarly, it is very possible that their alienation from
the belief that there is a transmission of those changes of structure
which are produced by changes of action, makes naturalists slight