118_e_. The reader will understand that my criticism does not pretend to invalidate Mr. Darwin’s discovery, but rather to enlarge its terms, so as to make it include all the biological conditions, and thus explain many of the variations which Natural Selection--in the restricted acceptation--leaves out of account. Mr. Darwin draws a broad line of distinction between Variation and Selection, regarding only those variations that are favorable as selected. I conceive that all variations which survive are by that fact of survival, _selections_, whether favorable or indifferent. A variety is a species in formation; now Selection itself is not a cause, or condition, of variation, it is the _expression_ of variation. Mr. Darwin is at times explicit enough on this head: “It may metaphorically be said that Natural Selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing throughout the world the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.”[62] But the metaphorical nature of the term is not always borne in mind, so that elsewhere Natural Selection is said to “act on and modify organic beings,” as if it were a positive condition and not the expression of the modifying processes. Because grouse are largely destroyed by birds of prey, any change in their color which would render them less conspicuous would enable more birds to escape; but it is obvious that this change of color will be due to Organic Affinity; and only when the change is _effected_ will there have been that selection which _expresses_ it. Mr. Darwin’s language, however, is misleading. He says: “Hence Natural Selection might be most effective in _giving_ the proper color to each kind of grouse, and in _keeping_ that color when once acquired.” This is to make Selection an agent, a condition of the development of color; which may be accepted if we extend the term so as to include the organic changes themselves. Again: “Some writers have imagined that Natural Selection _induces variability_, whereas it only implies the _preservation_ of such variations as are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life.” It, however, is made to imply more than this, namely, the accumulation and further modification of such variations. “The mere existence of individual variability and of some well-marked varieties, though necessary as the foundation, helps us but little in understanding how species arise in nature. How have all those exquisite adaptations of one part of the organization to another part, and to the conditions of life, and of one organic being to another being, been perfected?” My answer to this question would be: By Organic Affinity, and the resulting struggle of the tissues and organs, the consequences of which are that very _adaptation_ of the organism to external conditions, which is expressed as the _selection_ of the structures best adapted. The selections are the results of the struggle, according to my proposed extension of the term “struggle.” Mr. Darwin defines the struggle: “The dependence of one being on another, and including (what is more important) not only the life of the individual but success in leaving progeny.” This definition seems defective, since it omits the primary and more important struggle which takes place between the organic affinities in operation. To succeed in the struggle with competitors, the organism must have first acquired--by selection--a superiority in one or more of its organs.