unconscious effect of Circumstantial Selection.


DARWINISM NOT FINALLY REFUTABLE

Do not too hastily say that this is inconceivable. To Circumstantial
Selection all mechanical and chemical reactions are possible, provided
you accept the geologists' estimates of the great age of the earth, and
therefore allow time enough for the circumstances to operate. It is true
that mere survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence plus
sexual selection fail as hopelessly to account for Darwin's own life
work as for my conquest of the bicycle; but who can prove that there
are not other soulless factors, unnoticed or undiscovered, which only
require imagination enough to fit them to the evolution of an automatic
Jesus or Shakespear? When a man tells you that you are a product of
Circumstantial Selection solely, you cannot finally disprove it. You can
only tell him out of the depths of your inner conviction that he is a
fool and a liar. But as this, though British, is uncivil, it is wiser to
offer him the counter-assurance that you are the product of Lamarckian
evolution, formerly called Functional Adaptation and now Creative
Evolution, and challenge him to disprove _that_, which he can no more
do than you can disprove Circumstantial Selection, both forces being
conceivably able to produce anything if you only give them rope enough.
You may also defy him to act for a single hour on the assumption that he
may safely cross Oxford Street in a state of unconsciousness, trusting
to his dodging reflexes to react automatically and promptly enough
to the visual impression produced by a motor bus, and the audible
impression produced by its hooter. But if you allow yourself to defy him
to explain any particular action of yours by Circumstantial Selection,
he should always be able to find some explanation that will fit the case