this hypothesis would be to be proved, for then it would be most certainly
refuted. What we mean is this: If it is really "utility" that rules the
world and things, there can be no certainty and objectivity of knowledge,
no guarantee of truth. The "struggle for existence" is not concerned with
selecting beings who see the world as it is. It selects only the
interpretation and conception of the environment that is most serviceable
for the existence and maintenance of the species. But there is nothing to
guarantee that the "true" knowledge will also be the most useful. It might
quite well be that an entirely subjective and in itself wholly false
interpretation would be the most serviceable. And if, by some
extraordinary chance, the selected interpretation should be also the true
one, there would be no means of establishing the fact. And what is true of
this interpretation is true also of all theories that are derived from it,
for example of the theory of selection itself.

Furthermore, a great part, perhaps the greatest part of the confidence
placed in the theory of selection is due to an involuntary, but entirely
fallacious habit of crediting it with the probabilities in favour of the
doctrine of descent. The main arguments in favour of evolution and descent
are very often, though unwittingly, adduced in support of Darwinism in
particular. This is a great mistake. Take, for instance, the evidence of
the "palaeontological" record. It affords hundreds of proofs of evolution,
but not a single proof of selection. Its "intermediate" and "connecting
links" do possibly prove the affiliation of species and the validity of
genealogical trees. But precisely the "intermediate links" which
_selection_ requires--the myriads of forms of life which were not
successfully adapted, the unfit competitors in the struggle for existence
which must have accompanied the favourably adapted variants from step to
step, from generation to generation--these are altogether awanting.

Another circumstance seems to us to have been entirely overlooked, and it
is one which gives the theory of selection an inevitable appearance of
truth, even if it is essentially false, and thus makes it very difficult
to refute. Assuming that the recognition of teleological factors is valid,
that there is an inward law of development, that "Moses" or whoever one
will was undoubtedly right, it is self-evident that, because of the
indubitable over-production of organisms,