Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/60

34

sumptuous folio production, with nine magnificently coloured plates, is a distinct challenge to the theory of Natural Selection, and being based alone on the coloration of insects, to which the author has devoted twenty years of study, the argument is much narrowed, and the area of discussion curtailed into reasonable dimension and clearly defined. As well observed in the Introduction, the consideration of the question is no longer as formulated by the old school of naturalists—"How is man benefited by this phenomenon? The new query which takes its place is: What benefit does the particular species derive from the phenomena observed in connection with it? Teleology has become democratic."

The philosophical conception which permeates most biological teaching of to-day is that all peculiarities of structure and markings are the results of the process of natural selection, by which the living creature has survived as the fittest in the struggle for existence, and that where the result cannot be justified or demonstrated by our theory, the failure is caused by our present ignorance of all the reactions of the phenomena concerned. Brunner von Wattenwyl is quite outside this plane of thought, and considers that there are "a large number of phenomena devoid of benefit, and often, indeed, burdensome, to the animals and plants concerned"; and, further, that "this fact alone is sufficient to demonstrate that the plan of creation does not strive exclusively towards perfecting a species for its own sake."

The markings and coloration of insects are distinguished under nineteen sectional plans, many of which are considered as purposeless for the benefit of the species, while contrary evidence is not discarded. Thus, section 15 is devoted to "Changes of pattern due to Adaptation," and section 18 to "Coloring in relation to Position."

From this brief summary it will not be unexpected that the author decides that: "If one, therefore, calls modification through natural selection 'Darwinism,' a new name must be introduced for the undoubtedly demonstrable occurrence of phenomena in the