Selection

“ I will now say a few words on the circumstances, favourable or the reverse, to man's power of selection. A high degree of variability is obviously favourable, as freely giving the materials for selection to work on; not that mere individual differences are not amply sufficient, with extreme care, to allow of the accumulation of a large amount of modification in almost any desired direction. But as variations manifestly useful or pleasing to man appear only occasionally, the chance of their appearance will be much increased by a large number of individuals being kept. ”

“ I see in the growth of doubts regarding the principle of selection and in the pronounced and frequently bitter opposition which it encounters, a transient depression only of the wave of opinion, in which every scientific theory must descend after having been exalted, here perhaps with undue swiftness, to the highest pitch of recognition. ”

“ Perhaps a natural selection, a dead-earnest rigorous, selection that men work on nine hours a day, an implacable, unremitting process during working hours, of sorting men out (which we call business) , is the crowd's most reliable way of registering what it definitely thinks about the men it wants to represent it. ”

“ The facts here brought forward, as well as the interpretation of them at which I have arrived, confirm me more strongly than ever in the belief that selection is the all-sufficient principle on which the development of the organic world has been guided on its course. ”

“ In the above brief review of the incidence of selection in man, it has been the intention of the writer merely to give examples illustrative and suggestive of the applicability and importance of the different forms of selection for the study of man and his social evolution. An extended treatment of this subject is one of the great desiderata of the science of sociology, the half of which will be the theory of selection in its application to man. ”

“ Every too abrupt distinction into classes, political, economical, or intellectual, and all selection, which is the logical and natural consequence of such distinctions, are equally disastrous to mankind, to the elect as well as to the rest of men; "they produce with the latter deficiency, with the former excess of the element which is the principle of the distinction of classes." ”

“ The man who argued thus had been through and had left behind the difficulty that, even now, is often raised—that “before anything can be selected it must be,” and therefore that selection is of small account as compared with variation. ”

“ It will be seen that the selection is a representative one, and that no living person is included. The material chosen from each life is carefully selected, too, to suit the minds and tastes of children. ”

“ But in so crowded a generation, selection becomes increasingly needful, and in the present chapter, accordingly, the emphasis will be laid upon the first-named group as not only the most important, but the most representative of the various tendencies of their time. ”

“ Why, in short, attempt to a comprehensiveness that must be overwhelming when in fact the need is for a selection that shall not merely represent but elucidate and lead. Aren’t we, after all, all of us after some such indicating projection of a leading digit, after such an insistence on the outstandingly essential in face of this abundance, this saturation, this fluid chaos that perpetually increases? ”

“ Human application had sprung up, the idea of selection at once following, and she unmistakeably but wondered what would be best for her use while she completed the statement on which she had so strikingly embarked. ”

“ The principle of selection will render the work the more valuable to certain classes of persons—to those who, desirous of a competent knowledge of the history of their country, have but a limited time to devote to the study of it; to the young, whose minds are apt to become wearied and perplexed with the number and details of minor events; and to those who wish to refresh their recollections, without the labor and loss of time incident to the perusal of works constructed on the common plan. ”

“ When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of journals and transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me. ”

“ Thus the principle of the struggle for existence and of selection, taking the latter word in its broadest sense, is in my opinion as applicable to ideas as to individuals and living species; a selection takes place [Pg 462] in the brain to the advantage of the strongest and most exclusive idea, which is thus able to control the whole organism. In particular, the child's brain is an arena of conflict for ideas and the impulses they include; in the brain the new idea is a new force which encounters the ideas already installed, and the impulses already developed therein. ”

“ Selection is no less selection because it occurs by what we call chance—for chance is only our name for the totality of trivial and unconsidered causes. When, however, we count man and man’s efforts in the sum of natural objects and forces, we have to reckon with his intelligence in these selective processes. I desire to call attention to the place that they play in educative systems and in particular to the way in which they may be furthered or made more effective by books, especially by public collections of books. ”

“ What to choose is the question; for everybody has had more experiences than he could possibly record. Apt selection is what makes a good life history—selection under a governing sense of unity and progression. ”

“ But even taking the very simplest cases of selection, it is impossible to do without this assumption, that the useful variations are always present, or that they always exist in a sufficiently large number of individuals for the selective process. ”

“ Those who agree with me in rejecting the LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE will regard selection as the only GUIDING factor in evolution, which creates what is new out of the transmissible variations, by ordering and arranging these, selecting them in relation to their number and size, as the architect does his building-stones so that a particular style must result. ”

“ Without a selector there is no selection, and unless we speak mythologically, we cannot speak of Nature as a selector. I should have preferred, therefore, Rational Elimination, 195looking upon Reason, or the Good of Plato, as the power that works for good or for fitness in all that survives or is not crowded out. ”

“ The first manner, also called selection, consists in making, among the race itself, a rational, judicious choice of the most perfect types; those which are as free as possible from the most prominent defects of the breed; those which best recall the primitive type, if it possess the superior qualities which it is required to reproduce; those which, healthy and vigorous, seem to have among themselves the most affinity. ”

“ In this paper he discusses the startling proposition of Professor Bell, and recognizes the convincing proof which he furnishes to show that the law of selection does place within our reach a powerful influence for the improvement of our race. The striking character of the tables of facts presented by Professor Bell, and the significant suggestions of Dr. Brooks, lead one to consider how far the influence of selection has had to do with the character of great communities, as to their intelligence or ignorance. ”

“ I had also fully appreciated the importance of mere individual differences, and this led me to insist so strongly on the importance of that unconscious form of selection by man, which follows from the preservation of the most valued individuals of each breed, without any intention on his part to modify the characters of the breed. ”

“ SUMMARY ON SELECTION BY MAN. There can be no doubt that methodical selection has effected and will effect wonderful results. It was occasionally practised in ancient times, and is still practised by semi-civilised people. ”

“ If the expression 'natural selection' were not already so firmly fixed in its meaning, I should propose that it should be employed in the most general sense for all the processes of selection collectively, but we must keep to its original meaning and use it only for personal selection. ”

“ In many details I may have made mistakes which the investigations of the future will correct, but as far as the basis of my theory is concerned I am confident: the principle of selection does rule over all the categories of vital units. ”

“ If, on the other hand, we admit that new modifiers or inhibitors are from time to time coming into existence spontaneously, and that selection can use these to modify the pattern either in a plus or in a minus direction, then we must admit that selection is an agency of real creative power, able to modify unit characters indefinitely so long as physiological limitations are not reached. ”

“ To affirm it, in face of the fact that the growing complexity of the social organization is always making new demands on human nature, is to assert that selection can achieve perfect adaptation of a species to the requirements of a changing environment! ”

“ He told me that facts gave birth to, and were the absolute ground of, principles; to which I said, that unless he had a principle of selection, he would not have taken notice of those facts upon which he grounded his principle. You must have a lantern in your hand to give light, otherwise all the materials in the world are useless, for you cannot find them; and if you could, you could not arrange them. ”

“ The theory of selection teaches that in the121 life of mankind, as in that of plants and animals, it is always and everywhere a small and privileged minority alone which succeeds in living and developing itself; the immense majority, on the contrary suffer and succumb more or less prematurely. Countless are the seeds and eggs of every species of plants and animals, and the young individuals who issue from them. ”

“ But to give fixity, selection must be continued for a very long period: pray consider on this head what I have said in the Origin about the variability of characters developed in an extraordinary manner, in comparison with the same characters in allied species. The selection must also be for a definite object, and not for anything so vague as beauty, or for the superiority of one male in its weapons over another male, which can in like manner be modified. ”

“ I will write to him and try to make clear from analogy of domestic productions the part which I believe selection has played. I have been reworking my pigeons and other domestic animals, and I am sure that any one is right in saying that selection is the efficient cause, though, as you truly say, variation is the base of all. Why I do not believe so much as you do in physical agencies is that I see in almost every organism (though far more clearly in animals than in plants) adaptation, and this except in rare instances, must, I should think, be due to selection. ”

“ And directly one does attempt to define it, directly one sits down in a businesslike way to apply the method of elimination instead of the method of selection, one is immediately confronted by almost as complex an entanglement of difficulties in defining points to breed out as one is by defining points to breed for. ”

“ One can be natural, with a difference, which difference means a thought for the other. There is a selection possible in one's words and actions before another—nay, there is a manner of doing and feeling which almost forestalls the necessity of a selection at all. I like the expression employed by a certain sister after nursing her small brother through a difficult illness, "We were always Castilian," she said. ”

“ Selection clearly leads to the preservation of advantageous variations alone, and these variations are advantageous in so far as they meet the taste of the selecting organism. For selection depends upon individual choice; and uniformity of selection is entirely dependent upon uniformity in the standard of taste. ”

“ There is need of special selection, formulation, and organization in order that they may be adequately transmitted to the new generation. But this very process tends to set up subject matter as something of value just by itself, apart from its function in promoting the realization of the meanings implied in the present experience of the immature. ”

“ Besides the natural selection that is effected by our senses and the conscious selection that is manifest in attention, there is also a more or less arbitrary selection that our intellect performs in marking out the lines of our practical interest and possible action. In this work of selection the intellect makes the world conform to the necessities of our action. ”

“ I consider Natural Selection as of such high importance, because it accumulates successive variations in any profitable direction, and thus adapts each new being to its complex conditions of life. The term "selection," I see, deceives many persons, though I see no more reason why it should than elective affinity, as used by the old chemists. ”

“ The principle of selection may be conveniently divided into three kinds. Methodical selection is that which guides a man who systematically endeavours to modify a breed according to some predetermined standard. ”

“ According to the strict selection theory, it would be pure chance that among the thousands and thousands of individual qualities of the individuals of a species, such qualities are always existing as offer advantages to the individual in his struggle for existence. ”

“ From all that has been brought about in the efforts of man to improve or to vary the breeds of domestic animals—a kind of selection that is supposed to be analogous to what takes place in Nature, although under different conditions—it is apparent that there are limitations to the power of selection in regard to the effects that are to be attributed to it. ”