The probability seems rather to be that, by gamogenesis, this
extra endowment will, on the average, be diminished in
posterity--just serving in the long run to compensate the
deficient endowments of other individuals whose special powers
lie in other directions, and so to keep up the normal structure
of the species. The working out of the process is here somewhat
difficult to follow; but it appears to me that as fast as the
number of bodily and mental faculties increases, and as fast as
the maintenance of life comes to depend less on the amount of any
one, and more on the combined action of all, so fast does the
production of specialties of character by natural selection alone
become difficult. Particularly does this seem to be so with a
species so multitudinous in its powers as mankind, and above all
does it seem to be so with such of the human powers as have but
minor shares in aiding the struggle for life--the aesthetic
faculties for example."--Spencer, "Principles of Biology,"
sec. 166.
Can thus natural selection, acting upon fortuitous variations, be
the sole guiding process concerned in progress? Must there not be
some combining power to produce the higher individuals which are
prerequisites to the working of natural selection?
We are considering the efficiency of natural selection in enhancing
useful variations through a series of generations.
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