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SELECTION
The world is much what we make it.
The “man with the muckrake” hated his work, and with good reason. “How sweet is the smell of those pine boards!” said a lady to her friend as they were walking near the river in Chicago. “Pine boards,” he exclaimed; “just smell that foul river!” “No, thank you,” she answered, “I prefer to smell pine boards.”—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”
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SELECTION BY PURPOSE
Some years ago a cotton-planter in Georgia observed that the leaves on one of his plants was unlike the usual leaf; it was divided as if into fingers. So far nature had gone. The planter added his intelligence. He concluded that such a divided leaf would let in more sunshine on the cotton; also such a leaf would not be comfortable for caterpillars. So he searched out one or two of these peculiar plants, transplanted them to a field by themselves. As they propagated, he plucked up those with the old leaf, cultivated those with the new, and now these new cotton plants, finer than the old, free from caterpillars, are spread through many regions. That is human selection, based on natural selection, securing the fruits of evolution. It is just as applicable to man as to vegetation. A better man may be bred as well as a better kind of cotton.—Moncure D. Conway, The Monist.
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Selection Justified—See [Triumph by Selection].
Self-abnegation—See [Modesty].