Both Mr. Belloc and Dr. Downey are indeed in a hopeless muddle between the discussion of _the origin of variations_ and the question of the reaction of a variable species to its environment. Among all these biological questions they are helplessly at sea. I doubt if they have ever looked into a biological book except in a state of controversial prepossession. At the moment I am unable to verify Dr. Downey’s quotation from Mr. Bourne’s _Animal Life and Human Progress_ (1919), in which Mr. Bourne is made to say that the “extinction of the less fit and the survival of the fittest no longer commands the universal assent of zoologists,” but I am disposed to think that it must be clipped in some way. This sentence, I guess, is only the tail of a sentence. As it stands it is nonsense. [My guess, I find on returning to England, is correct. Even the authorship of the book is improperly ascribed to Professor (not Mr.) Bourne. It is a collection of papers by various hands. The passage in Professor Bourne’s paper runs as follows:— “I have been at some pains to convince you that the current doctrine that evolution in animals and plants depends upon a ratio of increase so high as to lead to unrestricted competition among the individuals of a species, and in consequence to a Struggle for Existence, with extinction of the less fit and Survival of the Fittest, no longer commands the universal assent of zoologists. Indeed it has been severely undermined by the discoveries of recent years.” Dr. Downey quotes from the words “extinction of the less fit” to the end. I do not wish to accuse Dr. Downey of any deliberate attempt to deceive in this misquotation. He did not understand the point Professor Bourne was driving at—generally he shows little or no grip upon these biological questions. Professor Bourne here is not discussing Natural Selection at all; he is discussing the entirely different question of whether there is normally a bitter struggle for existence between the individuals of the same species. If Dr. Downey had read on he would surely have grasped the idea—for Professor Bourne is very plain and simple—that a species may undergo natural selection without any struggle for existence between individuals at all. But Dr. Downey did not, I think, read on. He just took the words that seemed to suit his purpose—rather carelessly—and threw the book down. It is a little tedious, however, that one should have to verify the quotations of an antagonist in this way.]