399 
but run down the hares with as much ease as the fleetest of their 
race in this country. 55 —(Sir Charles Lyell. Principles of Geology, 
nth ed., vol. ii., p. 2çy.—Apnd Carpenter. Mental Physiology. 
P- 338.) 
The problem which we have now to solve is whether 
the processes just described resemble a transforming or a 
selecting influence. And the first question which we have 
to ask is whether Natural Selection could possibly pro 
duce so rapid a transmutation as this ? Mr. Darwin, in 
his cautious way, admits that Natural Selection is a slow 
process generally. 
“That Natural Selection generally acts with extreme slowness, 
I fully admit. ... I do believe that Natural Selection will 
generally act very slowly, only at long intervals of time and only 
on a few of the inhabitants of the same region. . . . Slow though 
the process of Natural Selection may be, ... I can see no limit 
to the amount of change . . . which may have been effected, in 
the long course of time, through nature’s power of selection—that is, 
by the survival of the fittest.”—(Origin of Species, pp. 84-85.) 
But I venture to say that what Mr. Darwin asserts will 
generally take place, must necessarily take place. The 
doubtful number of favourable variations which is sup 
posed to be put forth in each generation, to cite no other 
point, compels us to believe that Natural Selection cannot 
take place in a generation or two ; and hence, the results 
just enumerated must have been produced by transform 
ing, as distinguished from selecting, influence. Whether 
acquired modifications can be inherited or not, a trans 
mutation has taken place which has not been brought 
about by Natural Selection. 
We may apply another test to the modifications of 
organisms. According to the theory of Natural Selection, 
the variations from which choice is made are variations 
necessarily associated with reproduction, which are not 
in one definite direction, and which are more or less 
different in all the offspring. As we have already pointed