Mr. Darwin's claim on behalf of natural selection than there was a few
years ago, but on the contrary, that discontent is daily growing. To say
nothing of the Rev. J. J. Murphy and Professor Mivart, the late Mr. G.
H. Lewes did not find the objection a superficial one, nor yet did he
find it disappear "with a little familiarity"; on the contrary, the more
familiar he became with it the less he appeared to like it. I may even
go, without fear, so far as to say that any writer who now uses the
expression "natural selection," writes himself down thereby as behind
the age. It is with great pleasure that I observe Mr. Francis Darwin in
his recent lecture[368] to have kept clear of it altogether, and to have
made use of no expression, and advocated no doctrine to which either Dr.
Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck would not have readily assented. I think I may
affirm confidently that a few years ago any such lecture would have
contained repeated reference to Natural Selection. For my own part I
know of few passages in any theological writer which please me less than
the one which I have above followed sentence by sentence. I know of few
which should better serve to show us the sort of danger we should run if
we were to let men of science get the upper hand of us.

Natural Selection, then, is only another way of saying "Nature." Mr.
Darwin seems to be aware of this when he writes, "Nature, if I may be
allowed to personify the natural preservation or survival of the
fittest." And again, at the bottom of the same page, "It may
metaphorically be said that _natural selection is daily and hourly
scrutinizing_ throughout the world the slightest variations."[369] It
may be metaphorically said that _Nature_ is daily and hourly
scrutinizing, but it cannot be said consistently with any right use of
words, metaphorical or otherwise, that natural selection scrutinizes,
unless natural selection is merely a somewhat cumbrous synonym for
Nature. When, therefore, Mr. Darwin says that natural selection is the
"most important, but not the exclusive means" whereby any modification
has been effected, he is really saying that Nature is the most important
means of modification--which is only another way of telling us that
variation causes variations, and is all very true as far as it goes.

I did not read Professor Mivart's 'Lessons from Nature,' until I had
written all my own criticism on Mr. Darwin's position. From that work,
however, I now quote the fo