rately rejected.
The former was accepted on grounds of which the most general account
would be, if we may use the term, to call them subjective. But natural
selection is a physical, external, objective process. It is carried
out without the individual's volition: he is not aiming at the end.
It is simply natural law which, with many varieties of living beings
before it, exterminates the unfit individuals. Thus nature in its own
blind way produces a result of the same kind as that which the will of
man would bring about by subjective selection.

The origin of this term 'natural selection' is overlooked when people
talk glibly about 'natural selection' of ideas. Darwin used the term
'natural selection' because he thought he saw an analogy between the
tendency of nature and the selective purposes of intelligent beings.
It was because nature, working without intelligence, produced the same
kind of result as man does by intelligent selection, that he ventured
to use this term 'selection' of the process of nature. Perhaps he was
hardly justified in adopting the term, as nature does not select; she
only passes by. At the same time, artificial selection also includes,
although it is not limited to, this negative or weeding-out process.
When you select a certain plant for growth in your garden you weed out
the neighbouring plants which encroach upon it, so as to give it a
chance to grow and thrive. By removing its competitors, you let air
and light surround the plant, and it spreads its leaves to the sun.
The healthy growth which results is due to the removal of obstacles
by an external power; and it is in this way--by the removal of
obstacles--that natural selection works.

Intelligent or artificial selection is not restricted to this negative
method of working; and its operation, positive as well as negative,
was certainly well known long before Darwin's day. Starting with the
familiar facts of artificial or purposive selection, Darwin showed how
results similar to those aimed at and reached in this way might be
brought about by the operation of certain natural laws, working
without purpose or design. Purposive selection pursues its ends more
directly and in general attains them far more quickly than does
natural selection. A still more striking characteristic is the fact
that it does not entail the waste and pain which mark the course of
natural selection. Witness the records of natural selection in the
vegetable and animal