Take, for instance, the oak tree. It produces thousands of acorns, almost the whole of which die without producing any progeny. Have we any reason to believe that if the number of acorns borne by oak trees were diminished, even so much as to one-tenth, the race of oaks would perish? It may of course be said that, if all other things are equal, the probabilities of survival must be increased by increased fertility of this kind; but I feel convinced that when numerical fertility has attained to a high point in circumstances in which actual increase of the race cannot take place to any substantial extent, the numerical value of this fertility sinks down into a factor of the second or third order of importance--that is to say, into the position of a factor whose effects are only to be considered when we have duly allowed for the full effects of all the main factors. Until we have done that, we gain little or nothing in the way of accuracy of conclusion by taking into consideration the minor factors. It may be very well to neglect the effect of the attraction of Jupiter in our early researches on the motion of the Moon; and our doing so will not prevent the results being approximate and having considerable value, because we are retaining the two main factors that establish the motion, viz. the effects of the Earth and the Sun. But if we exclude the effect of one of these main factors, our results would be worthless; and it would not be rendered substantially less so by the fact that we had taken Jupiter into account in arriving at them. You must not imagine, however, that I think it wholly profitless to see whether there would be any substantial effect on numerical fertility were _selective_ fertility to manifest itself. But if we want to derive any assistance from calculation, it must be by applying it with a good deal more precision and definiteness than anything that Wallace shows. And, in the first place, it is useless to confuse the vegetable and animal kingdoms. In the former you have union unaffected by choice; in the latter, so far at all events as the higher animals are concerned, you have "psychological selection." In order to give you a specimen of what can safely be done by calculation if you take a problem of sufficient definiteness, I have chosen the case of a flowering plant in which a certain proportion of the race have developed the peculiarity of being sterile with the remainder, while retaining the normal fertility of the race in unions among themselves. In order to give the greatest advantage to your critics, I have assumed that such flowers as possess the peculiarity are not self-fertilizable; for it is clear that if we suppose that they are self-fertilizable, the fertility need be very slightly affected.