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do not afford the conditions necessary for the application 
of Natural Selection. It might, however, be said that 
in other cases Natural Selection can be seen in full action. 
If that is so, it is curious that neither by observation nor 
experiment has Natural Selection pure and simple been 
proved to have any place in nature. No one has taken a 
group of animals and placed them in new circumstances 
and noted the different stages of the theoretical process 
as they are depicted in the glowing rhetoric of theory ; 
and till that has been done, no one can boast that the 
truth of Natural Selection has been demonstrated. But a 
process which is not Natural Selection has taken place— 
a process with which it is impossible that Natural Selec 
tion, if it were a law of nature, could compete. 
In considering the question of the inherited effect of 
habit, and the transforming influence of changed habits, it 
may first of all be observed that some writers, who con 
trovert that principle, admit that a considerable effect is 
produced upon the individual organism submitted to such 
influence. This Mr. Ball admits on the very threshold of 
his enquiry, although he argues against the inheritance of 
such effects. 
“ It is obvious that we can produce important changes in the 
individual. We can, for example, improve his muscles by athletics 
and his brain by education. The use of organs enlarges and 
strengthens them ; the disuse of parts or faculties weakens them. 
And so great is the power of habit that it is proverbially spoken 
of as ‘second nature.’ It is thus certain that we can modify the 
individual. We can strengthen (or weaken) his body; we can 
improve (or deteriorate) his intellect, his habits, his morals.”— 
(William Platt Ball. Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? 
A 2.) 
Again, it will be admitted by all that, as the organism of 
the individual responds to the influence of habit, so in the 
case of a species the adoption of new habits does lead,