It may be said, indeed, that New Zealand has not accepted Henry George's doctrines as they were propounded by their author, and this is literally true. It is, however, also true that they have accepted the essential spirit of those doctrines, and, applying that spirit to the circumstances of their own country, are giving probably the most useful practical illustration of all that is best in them for the world's acceptance. No doctrine in economics yet propounded for the acceptance of humanity has ever been found to be applicable in exactly the same form or to exactly the same extent under all circumstances, and this, it may be safely said, will prove emphatically true of the doctrine of the single tax. The single tax, like all other economic plans, is not an end, but only a means. The end must be the amelioration of the condition of the masses of the people, and the consequent prosperity and happiness of the great majority. In New Zealand the people and their leaders believe this to be secured by taxing wealth rather than comparative poverty; by giving every encouragement to those who will devote themselves to the cultivation of the land; and by throwing every obstacle in the path of those who would fain establish and promote the pernicious system of private landlordism, which everywhere tends to create and perpetuate class distinctions, with their long train of attendant evils. In these respects New Zealand presents an object-lesson which can hardly fail to be of value to other countries, even if their conditions differ widely from her own. Her successes may be noted with advantage, her mistakes may be criticised with profit, in every free country and by all those who see that existing conditions are far from perfect in any part of the world, and that the safety as well as the advancement of society may depend largely upon the introduction of wise and, it may be, far-reaching reforms. NATURAL SELECTION, SOCIAL SELECTION, AND HEREDITY. BY PROFESSOR JOHN R. COMMONS, _Of Syracuse University, N. Y._ The term "natural selection" is a misnomer, as Darwin himself perceived. It means merely survival. "Selection" proper involves intention, and belongs to human reason. Selection by man we call artificial. Natural selection is the outcome of certain physical facts: 1. Environment: the complex of forces, such as soil, climate, food, and competitors. 2. Heredity: the tendency in offspring to follow the type of the parent. 3. Variation: the tendency to diverge from that type. 4. Over-population: the tendency to multiply offspring beyond the food supply. 5. Struggle for life: the effort to exclude others or to consume others. 6. Consciousness of kind: the tendency to spare and coöperate with offspring and others of like type. 7. Survival of the fittest: the victory of those best fitted to their environment by heredity, variation, numbers, and consciousness of kind.