Note 63 — Chapter V · EVOLUTION.

Mr. Darwin has himself, in the following passage, stated a somewhat similar view, and rejected it: “In one sense the conditions of life may be said not only to cause variability, but likewise to include Natural Selection, for the conditions determine whether this or that variety shall survive. But when man is the selecting agent, we clearly see that the two elements of change are distinct; the conditions cause the variability, the will of man acting either consciously or unconsciously accumulates the variations in certain directions, and this answers to the survival of the fittest under nature.” (p. 168.)