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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Origin of Species, by Huxley
+#19 in our series by Thomas H. Huxley
+
+Also see:
+Origin of Species, 6th Ed., by Charles Darwin [#5][otoos610.xxx]2009
+On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin   [#3][otoosxxx.xxx]1228
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+Title:  The Origin of Species
+
+Author:  Thomas H. Huxley
+
+Release Date:  November, 2001  [Etext #2929]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
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+Edition:  10
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Origin of Species, by Huxley
+*****This file should be named thx0910.txt or thx0910.zip******
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+This etext was prepared by Amy E. Zelmer.
+This etext is based on^M
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+
+
+
+
+THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES*
+
+by Thomas H. Huxley
+
+
+
+
+    [footnote] *'The Westminster Review', April 1860.
+
+
+MR. DARWIN'S long-standing and well-earned scientific eminence probably
+renders him indifferent to that social notoriety which passes by the
+name of success; but if the calm spirit of the philosopher have not yet
+wholly superseded the ambition and the vanity of the carnal man within
+him, he must be well satisfied with the results of his venture in
+publishing the 'Origin of Species'.  Overflowing the narrow bounds of
+purely scientific circles, the "species question" divides with Italy
+and the Volunteers the attention of general society.  Everybody has read
+Mr.  Darwin's book, or, at least, has given an opinion upon its merits
+or demerits; pietists, whether lay or ecclesiastic, decry it with the
+mild railing which sounds so charitable; bigots denounce it with
+ignorant invective; old  ladies of both sexes consider it a decidedly
+dangerous book, and even savants, who have no better mud to throw,
+quote antiquated writers to show that its author is no better than an
+ape himself; while every philosophical thinker hails it as a veritable
+Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism; and all competent
+naturalists and physiologists, whatever their opinions as to the
+ultimate fate of the doctrines put forth, acknowledge that the work in
+which they are embodied is a solid contribution to knowledge and
+inaugurates a new epoch in natural history.
+
+Nor has the discussion of the subject been restrained within the limits
+of conversation.  When the public is eager and interested, reviewers
+must minister to its wants; and the genuine 'litterateur' is too much
+in the habit of acquiring his knowledge from the book he judges--as the
+Abyssinian is said to provide himself with steaks from the ox which
+carries him--to be withheld from criticism of a profound scientific
+work by the mere want of the requisite preliminary scientific
+acquirement; while, on the other hand, the men of science who wish well
+to the new views, no less than those who dispute their validity, have
+naturally sought opportunities of expressing their opinions.  Hence it
+is not surprising that almost all the critical journals have noticed
+Mr. Darwin's work at greater or less length; and so many disquisitions,
+of every degree of excellence, from the poor product of ignorance, too
+often stimulated by prejudice, to the fair and thoughtful essay of the
+candid student of Nature, have appeared, that it seems an almost
+hopeless task to attempt to say anything new upon the question.
+
+But it may be doubted if the knowledge and acumen of prejudged
+scientific opponents, or the subtlety of orthodox special pleaders,
+have yet exerted their full force in mystifying the real issues of the
+great controversy which has been set afoot, and whose end is hardly
+likely to be seen by this generation; so that, at this eleventh hour,
+and even failing anything new, it may be useful to state afresh that
+which is true, and to put the fundamental positions advocated by Mr.
+Darwin in such a form that they may be grasped by those whose special
+studies lie in other directions.  And the adoption of this course may
+be the more advisable, because, notwithstanding its great deserts, and
+indeed partly on account of them, the 'Origin of Species' is by no
+means an easy book to read--if by reading is implied the full
+comprehension of an author's meaning.
+
+We do not speak jestingly in saying that it is Mr. Darwin's misfortune
+to know more about the question he has taken up than any man living.
+Personally and practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in
+geology; a student of geographical distribution, not on maps and in
+museums only, but by long voyages and laborious collection; having
+largely advanced each of these branches of science, and having spent
+many years in gathering and sifting materials for his present work, the
+store of accurately registered facts upon which the author of the
+'Origin of Species' is able to draw at will is prodigious.
+
+But this very superabundance of matter must have been embarrassing to a
+writer who, for the present, can only put forward an abstract of his
+views; and thence it arises, perhaps, that notwithstanding the
+clearness of the style, those who attempt fairly to digest the book
+find much of it a sort of intellectual pemmican--a mass of facts
+crushed and pounded into shape, rather than held together by the
+ordinary medium of an obvious logical bond; due attention will, without
+doubt, discover this bond, but it is often hard to find.
+
+Again, from sheer want of room, much has to be taken for granted which
+might readily enough be proved; and hence, while the adept, who can
+supply the missing links in the evidence from his own knowledge,
+discovers fresh proof of the singular thoroughness with which all
+difficulties have been considered and all unjustifiable suppositions
+avoided, at every reperusal of Mr. Darwin's pregnant paragraphs, the
+novice in biology is apt to complain of the frequency of what he
+fancies is  gratuitous assumption.
+
+Thus while it may be doubted if, for some years, any one is likely to be
+competent to pronounce judgment on all the issues raised by Mr. Darwin,
+there is assuredly abundant room for him, who, assuming the humbler,
+though perhaps as useful, office of an interpreter between the 'Origin
+of Species' and the public, contents himself with endeavouring to point
+out the nature of the problems which it discusses; to distinguish
+between the ascertained facts and the theoretical views which it
+contains; and finally, to show the extent to which the explanation it
+offers satisfies the requirements of scientific logic.  At any rate, it
+is this office which we purpose to undertake in the following pages.
+
+It may be safely assumed that our readers have a general conception of
+the nature of the objects to which the word "species" is applied; but
+it has, perhaps, occurred to a few, even to those who are naturalists
+'ex professo', to reflect, that, as commonly employed, the term has a
+double sense and denotes two very different orders of relations.  When
+we call a group of animals, or of plants, a species, we may imply
+thereby, either that all these animals or plants have some common
+peculiarity of form or structure; or, we may mean that they possess
+some common functional character.  That part of biological science
+which deals with form and structure is called Morphology--that which
+concerns itself with function, Physiology--so that we may conveniently
+speak of these two senses, or aspects, of "species"--the one as
+morphological, the other as physiological.  Regarded from the former
+point of view, a species is nothing more than a kind of animal or
+plant, which is distinctly definable from all others, by certain
+constant, and not merely sexual, morphological peculiarities.  Thus
+horses form a species, because the group of animals to which that name
+is applied is distinguished from all others in the world by the
+following constantly associated characters.  They  have--1, A vertebral
+column; 2, Mammae; 3, A placental embryo; 4, Four legs; 5, A single
+well-developed toe in each foot provided with a hoof; 6, A bushy tail;
+and 7, Callosities on the inner sides of both the fore and the hind
+legs.  The asses, again, form a distinct species, because, with the
+same characters, as far as the fifth in the above list, all asses have
+tufted tails, and have callosities only on the inner side of the
+fore-legs.  If animals were discovered having the general characters of
+the horse, but sometimes with callosities only on the fore-legs, and
+more or less tufted tails; or animals having the general characters of
+the ass, but with more or less bushy tails, and sometimes with
+callosities on both pairs of legs, besides being intermediate in other
+respects--the two species would have to be merged into one.  They could
+no longer be regarded as morphologically distinct species, for they
+would not be distinctly definable one from the other.
+
+However bare and simple this definition of species may appear to be, we
+confidently appeal to all practical naturalists, whether zoologists,
+botanists, or palaeontologists, to say if, in the vast majority of
+cases, they know, or mean to affirm anything more of the group of
+animals or plants they so denominate than what has just been stated.
+Even the most decided advocates of the received doctrines respecting
+species admit this.
+
+"I apprehend," says Professor Owen*, "that few naturalists nowadays, in
+describing and proposing a name for what they call 'a new species,' use
+that term to signify what was meant by it twenty or thirty years ago;
+that is, an originally distinct creation, maintaining its primitive
+distinction by obstructive generative peculiarities.  The proposer of
+the new species now intends to state no more than he actually knows;
+as, for example, that the differences on which he founds the specific
+character are constant in individuals of both sexes, so far as
+observation has reached; and that they are not due to domestication or
+to artificially superinduced external circumstances, or to any outward
+influence within his cognizance; that the species is wild, or is such
+as it appears by Nature."
+
+    [footnote] *On the Osteology of the Chimpanzees and Orangs:
+    Transactions of the Zoological Society, 1858.
+
+If we consider, in fact, that by far the largest proportion of recorded
+existing species are known only by the study of their skins, or bones,
+or other lifeless exuvia; that we are acquainted with none, or next to
+none, of their physiological peculiarities, beyond those which can be
+deduced from their structure, or are open to cursory observation; and
+that we cannot hope to learn more of any of those extinct forms of life
+which now constitute no inconsiderable proportion of the known Flora
+and Fauna of the world: it is obvious that the definitions of these
+species can be only of a purely structural, or morphological, character.
+It is probable that naturalists would have avoided much confusion of
+ideas if they had more frequently borne the necessary limitations of
+our knowledge in mind.  But while it may safely be admitted that we are
+acquainted with only the morphological characters of the vast majority
+of species--the functional or physiological, peculiarities of a few have
+been carefully investigated, and the result of that study forms a large
+and most interesting portion of  the physiology of reproduction.
+
+The student of Nature wonders the more and is astonished the less, the
+more conversant he becomes with her operations; but of all the
+perennial miracles she offers to his inspection, perhaps the most
+worthy of admiration is the development of a plant or of an animal from
+its embryo.  Examine the recently laid egg of some common animal, such
+as a salamander or newt.  It is a minute spheroid in which the best
+microscope will reveal nothing but a structureless sac, enclosing a
+glairy fluid, holding granules in suspension.  But strange
+possibilities lie dormant in that semi-fluid globule.  Let a moderate
+supply of warmth reach its watery cradle, and the plastic matter
+undergoes changes so rapid, yet so steady and purposelike in their
+succession, that one can only compare them to those operated by a
+skilled modeller upon a formless lump of clay.  As with an invisible
+trowel, the mass is divided and subdivided into smaller and smaller
+portions, until it is reduced to an aggregation of granules not too
+large to build withal the finest fabrics of the nascent organism.  And,
+then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line to be occupied
+by the spinal column, and moulded the contour of the body; pinching up
+the head at one end, the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and
+limb into due salamandrine proportions, in so artistic a way, that,
+after watching the process hour by hour, one is almost involuntarily
+possessed by the notion, that some more subtle aid to vision than an
+achromatic, would show the hidden artist, with his plan before him,
+striving with skilful manipulation to perfect his work.
+
+As life advances, and the young amphibian ranges the waters, the terror
+of his insect contemporaries, not only are the nutritious particles
+supplied by its prey, by the addition of which to its frame, growth
+takes place, laid down, each in its proper spot, and in such due
+proportion to the rest, as to reproduce the form, the colour, and the
+size, characteristic of the parental stock; but even the wonderful
+powers of reproducing lost parts possessed by these animals are
+controlled by the same governing tendency.  Cut off the legs, the tail,
+the jaws, separately or all together, and, as Spallanzani showed long
+ago, these parts not only grow again, but the redintegrated limb is
+formed on the same type as those which were lost.  The new jaw, or leg,
+is a newt's, and never by any accident more like that of a frog.  What
+is true of the newt is true of every animal and of every plant; the
+acorn tends to build itself up again into a woodland giant such as that
+from whose twig it fell; the spore of the humblest lichen reproduces
+the green or brown incrustation which gave it birth; and at the other
+end of the scale of life, the child that resembled neither the paternal
+nor the maternal side of the house would be regarded as a kind of
+monster.
+
+So that the one end to which, in all living beings, the formative
+impulse is tending--the one scheme which the Archaeus of the old
+speculators strives to carry out, seems to be to mould the offspring
+into the likeness of the parent.  It is the first great law of
+reproduction, that the offspring tends to resemble its parent or
+parents, more closely than anything else.
+
+Science will some day show us how this law is a necessary consequence of
+the more general laws which govern matter; but, for the present, more
+can hardly be said than that it appears to be in harmony with them.  We
+know that the phenomena of vitality are not something apart from other
+physical phenomena, but one with them; and matter and force are the two
+names of the one artist who fashions the living as well as the
+lifeless.  Hence living bodies should obey the same great laws as other
+matter--nor, throughout Nature, is there a law of wider application
+than this, that a body impelled by two forces takes the direction of
+their resultant. But living bodies  may be regarded as nothing but
+extremely complex bundles of forces held in a mass of matter, as the
+complex forces of a magnet are held in the steel by its coercive force;
+and, since the differences of sex are comparatively slight, or, in other
+words, the sum of the forces in each has a very similar tendency, their
+resultant, the offspring, may reasonably be expected to deviate but
+little from a course parallel to either, or to both.
+
+Represent the reason of the law to ourselves by what physical metaphor
+or analogy we will, however, the great matter is to apprehend its
+existence and the importance of the consequences deducible from it. For
+things which are like to the same are like to one another; and if; in a
+great series of generations, every offspring is like its parent, it
+follows that all the offspring and all the parents must be like one
+another; and that, given an original parental stock, with the
+opportunity of undisturbed multiplication, the law in question
+necessitates the production, in course of time, of an indefinitely
+large group, the whole of whose members are at once very similar and
+are blood relations, having descended from the same parent, or pair of
+parents.  The proof that all the members of any given group of animals,
+or plants, had thus descended, would be ordinarily considered
+sufficient to entitle them to the rank of physiological species, for
+most physiologists consider species to be definable as "the offspring
+of a single primitive stock."
+
+But though it is quite true that all those groups we call species 'may',
+according to the known laws of reproduction, have descended from a
+single stock, and though it is very likely they really have done so,
+yet this conclusion rests on deduction and can hardly hope to establish
+itself upon a basis of observation.  And the primitiveness of the
+supposed single stock, which, after all, is the essential part of the
+matter, is not only a hypothesis, but one which has not a shadow of
+foundation, if by "primitive" be meant "independent of any other living
+being."  A scientific definition, of which an unwarrantable hypothesis
+forms an essential part, carries its condemnation within itself; but,
+even supposing such a definition were, in form, tenable, the
+physiologist who should attempt to apply it in Nature would soon find
+himself involved in great, if not inextricable, difficulties.  As we
+have said, it is indubitable that offspring 'tend' to resemble the
+parental organism, but it is equally true that the similarity attained
+never amounts to identity, either in form or in structure.  There is
+always a certain amount of deviation, not only from the precise
+characters of a single parent, but when, as in most animals and many
+plants, the sexes are lodged in distinct individuals, from an exact mean
+between the two parents.  And indeed, on general principles, this
+slight deviation seems as intelligible as the general similarity, if we
+reflect how complex the co-operating "bundles of forces" are, and how
+improbable it is that, in any case, their true resultant shall coincide
+with any mean between the more obvious characters of the two parents.
+Whatever be its cause, however, the co-existence of this tendency to
+minor variation with the tendency to general similarity, is of vast
+importance in its bearing on the question of the origin of species.
+
+As a general rule, the extent to which an offspring differs from its
+parent is slight enough; but, occasionally, the amount of difference is
+much more strongly marked, and then the divergent offspring receives
+the name of a Variety.  Multitudes, of what there is every reason to
+believe are such varieties, are known, but the origin of very few has
+been accurately recorded, and of these we will select two as more
+especially illustrative of the main features of variation.  The first
+of them is that of the "Ancon," or "Otter" sheep, of which a careful
+account is given by Colonel David Humphreys, F.R.S., in a letter to Sir
+Joseph Banks, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1813.  It
+appears that one Seth Wright, the proprietor of a farm on the banks of
+the Charles River, in Massachusetts, possessed a flock of fifteen ewes
+and a ram of the ordinary kind.  In the year 1791, one of the ewes
+presented her owner with a male lamb, differing, for no assignable
+reason, from its parents by a proportionally long body and short bandy
+legs, whence it was unable to emulate its relatives in those sportive
+leaps over the neighbours' fences, in which they were in the habit of
+indulging, much to the good farmer's vexation.
+
+The second case is that detailed by a no less unexceptionable authority
+than Reaumur, in his 'Art de faire eclore les Poulets'.  A Maltese
+couple, named Kelleia, whose hands and feet were constructed upon the
+ordinary human model, had born to them a son, Gratio, who possessed six
+perfectly movable fingers on each hand, and six toes, not quite so well
+formed, on each foot.  No cause could be assigned for the appearance of
+this unusual variety of the human species.
+
+Two circumstances are well worthy of remark in both these cases.  In
+each, the variety appears to have arisen in full force, and, as it
+were, 'per saltum'; a wide and definite difference appearing, at once,
+between the Ancon ram and the ordinary sheep; between the six-fingered
+and six-toed Gratio Kelleia and ordinary men.  In neither case is it
+possible to point out any obvious reason for the appearance of the
+variety.  Doubtless there were determining causes for these as for all
+other phenomena; but they do not appear, and we can be tolerably certain
+that what are ordinarily understood as changes in physical conditions,
+as in climate, in food, or the like, did not take place and had nothing
+to do with the matter.  It was no case of what is commonly called
+adaptation to circumstances; but, to use a conveniently erroneous
+phrase, the variations arose spontaneously.  The fruitless search after
+final causes leads their pursuers a long way; but even those hardy
+teleologists, who are ready to break through all the laws of physics in
+chase of their favourite will-o'-the-wisp, may be puzzled to discover
+what purpose could be attained by the stunted legs of Seth Wright's ram
+or the hexadactyle members of Gratio Kelleia.
+
+Varieties then arise we know not why; and it is more than probable that
+the majority of varieties have arisen in this "spontaneous" manner,
+though we are, of course, far from denying that they may be traced, in
+some cases, to distinct external influences; which are assuredly
+competent to alter the character of the tegumentary covering, to change
+colour, to increase or diminish the size of muscles, to modify
+constitution, and, among plants, to give rise to the metamorphosis of
+stamens into petals, and  so forth.  But however they may have arisen,
+what especially interests us at present is, to remark that, once in
+existence, varieties obey the fundamental law of reproduction that like
+tends to produce like; and their offspring exemplify it by tending to
+exhibit the same deviation from the parental stock as themselves.
+Indeed, there seems to be, in many instances, a pre-potent influence
+about a newly-arisen variety which gives it what one may call an unfair
+advantage over the normal descendants from the same stock.  This is
+strikingly exemplified by the case of Gratio Kelleia, who married a
+woman with the ordinary pentadactyle extremities, and had by her four
+children, Salvator, George, Andre, and Marie.  Of these children
+Salvator, the eldest boy, had six fingers and six toes, like his
+father; the second and third, also boys, had five fingers and five toes,
+like their mother, though the hands and feet of George were slightly
+deformed.  The last, a girl, had five fingers and five toes, but the
+thumbs were slightly deformed.  The variety thus reproduced itself
+purely in the eldest, while the normal type reproduced itself purely in
+the third, and almost purely in the second and last: so that it would
+seem, at first, as if the normal type were more powerful than the
+variety.  But all these children grew up and intermarried with normal
+wives and husband, and then, note what took place: Salvator had four
+children, three of whom exhibited the hexadactyle members of their
+grandfather and father, while the youngest had the pentadactyle limbs
+of the mother and grandmother; so that here, notwithstanding a double
+pentadactyle dilution of the blood, the hexadactyle variety had the
+best of it.  The same pre-potency of the variety was still more
+markedly exemplified in the progeny of two of the other children, Marie
+and George.  Marie (whose thumbs only were deformed) gave birth to a boy
+with six toes, and three other normally formed children; but George,
+who was not quite so pure a pentadactyle, begot, first, two girls, each
+of whom had six fingers and toes; then a girl with six fingers on each
+hand and  six toes on the right foot, but only five toes on the left;
+and lastly, a boy with only five fingers and toes.  In these instances,
+therefore, the variety, as it were, leaped over one generation to
+reproduce itself in full force in the next.  Finally, the purely
+pentadactyle Andre was the father of many children, not one of whom
+departed from the normal parental type.
+
+If a variation which approaches the nature of a monstrosity can strive
+thus forcibly to reproduce itself, it is not wonderful that less
+aberrant modifications should tend to be preserved even more strongly;
+and the history of the Ancon sheep is, in this respect, particularly
+instructive.  With the "'cuteness" characteristic of their nation, the
+neighbours of the Massachusetts farmer imagined it would  be an
+excellent thing if all his sheep were imbued with the stay-at-home
+tendencies enforced by Nature upon the newly-arrived ram; and they
+advised Wright to kill the old patriarch of his fold, and install the
+Ancon ram in his place.  The result justified their sagacious
+anticipations, and coincided very nearly with what occurred to the
+progeny of Gratio Kelleia.  The young lambs were almost always either
+pure Ancons, or pure ordinary sheep.*  But when sufficient Ancon sheep
+were obtained to interbreed with one another, it was found that the
+offspring was always pure Ancon.  Colonel Humphreys, in fact, states
+that he was acquainted with only "one questionable case of a contrary
+nature."  Here, then, is a remarkable and well-established instance,
+not only of a very distinct race being established 'per saltum', but of
+that race breeding "true" at once, and showing no mixed forms, even
+when crossed with another breed.
+
+    [footnote] *Colonel Humphreys' statements are exceedingly
+    explicit on this point:--"When an Ancon ewe is impregnated
+    by a common ram, the increase resembles wholly either the
+    ewe or the ram.  The increase of the common ewe impregnated
+    by an Ancon ram follows entirely the one or the other,
+    without blending any of the distinguishing and essential
+    peculiarities of both. Frequent instances have happened
+    where common ewes have had twins by Ancon rams, when one
+    exhibited the complete marks and features of the ewe, the
+    other of the ram.  The contrast has been rendered
+    singularly striking, when one short-legged and one
+    long-legged lamb, produced at a birth, have been seen
+    sucking the dam at the same time."--'Philosophical
+    Transactions', 1813, Pt. I. pp. 89, 90.
+
+By taking care to select Ancons of both sexes, for breeding from, it
+thus became easy to establish an extremely well-marked race; so
+peculiar that, even when herded with other sheep, it was noted that the
+Ancons kept together.  And there is every reason to believe that the
+existence of this breed might have been indefinitely protracted; but the
+introduction of the Merino sheep, which were not only very superior to
+the Ancons in wool and meat, but quite as quiet and orderly, led to the
+complete neglect of the new breed, so that, in 1813, Colonel Humphreys
+found it difficult to obtain the specimen, whose skeleton was presented
+to Sir Joseph Banks.  We believe that, for many years, no remnant of it
+has existed in the United States.
+
+Gratio Kelleia was not the progenitor of a race of six-fingered men, as
+Seth Wright's ram became a nation of Ancon sheep, though the tendency
+of the variety to perpetuate itself appears to have been fully as
+strong in the one case as in the other.  And the reason of the
+difference is not far to seek.  Seth Wright took care not to weaken the
+Ancon blood by matching his Ancon ewes with any but males of the same
+variety, while Gratio Kelleia's sons were too far removed from the
+patriarchal times to intermarry with their sisters; and his
+grandchildren seem not to have been attracted by their six-fingered
+cousins.  In other words, in the one example a race was produced,
+because, for several generations, care was taken to 'select' both
+parents of the breeding stock from animals exhibiting a tendency to vary
+in the same condition; while, in the other, no race was evolved,
+because no such selection was exercised.  A race is a propagated
+variety; and as, by the laws of reproduction, offspring tend to assume
+the parental forms, they will be more likely to propagate a variation
+exhibited by both parents than that possessed by only one.
+
+There is no organ of the body of an animal which may not, and does not,
+occasionally, vary more or less from the normal type; and there is no
+variation which may not be transmitted and which, if selectively
+transmitted, may not become the foundation of a race.  This great
+truth, sometimes forgotten by philosophers, has long been familiar to
+practical agriculturists and breeders; and upon it rest all the methods
+of improving the breeds of domestic animals, which, for the last
+century, have been followed with so much success in England.  Colour,
+form, size, texture of hair or wool, proportions of various parts,
+strength or weakness of constitution, tendency to fatten or to remain
+lean, to give much or little milk, speed, strength, temper,
+intelligence, special instincts; there is not one of these characters
+whose transmission is not an every-day occurrence within the experience
+of cattle-breeders, stock-farmers, horse-dealers, and dog and poultry
+fanciers.  Nay, it is only the other day that an  eminent physiologist,
+Dr.  Brown-Sequard, communicated to the Royal Society his discovery
+that epilepsy, artificially produced in guinea-pigs, by a means which
+he has discovered, is transmitted to their offspring.
+
+But a race, once produced, is no more a fixed and immutable entity than
+the stock whence it sprang; variations arise among its members, and as
+these variations are transmitted like any others, new races may be
+developed out of the pre-existing one 'ad infinitum', or, at least,
+within any limit at present determined.  Given sufficient time and
+sufficiently careful selection, and the multitude of races which may
+arise from a common stock is as astonishing as are the extreme
+structural differences which they may present.  A remarkable example of
+this is to be found in the rock-pigeon, which Dr. Darwin has, in our
+opinion, satisfactorily demonstrated to be the progenitor of all our
+domestic pigeons, of which there are certainly more than a hundred
+well-marked races.  The most noteworthy of these races are, the four
+great stocks known to the "fancy" as tumblers, pouters, carriers, and
+fantails; birds which not only differ most singularly in size, colour,
+and habits, but in the form of the beak and of the skull: in the
+proportions of the  beak to the skull; in the number of tail-feathers;
+in the absolute and relative size of the feet; in the presence or
+absence of the uropygial gland; in the number of vertebrae in the back;
+in short, in precisely those characters in which the genera and species
+of birds differ from one another.
+
+And it is most remarkable and instructive to observe, that none of these
+races can be shown to have been originated by the action of changes in
+what are commonly called external circumstances, upon the wild
+rock-pigeon.  On the contrary, from time immemorial, pigeon-fanciers
+have had essentially similar methods of treating their pets, which have
+been housed, fed, protected and cared for in much the same way in all
+pigeonries.  In fact, there is no case better adapted than that of the
+pigeons to refute the doctrine which one sees put forth on high
+authority, that "no other characters than those founded on the
+development of bone for the attachment of muscles" are capable of
+variation.  In precise contradiction of this hasty assertion, Mr.
+Darwin's researches prove that the skeleton of the wings in domestic
+pigeons has hardly varied at all from that of the wild type; while, on
+the other hand, it is in exactly those respects, such as the relative
+length of the beak and skull, the number of the vertebrae, and the
+number of the tail-feathers, in which muscular exertion can have no
+important influence, that the utmost amount of variation has taken
+place.
+
+We have said that the following out of the properties exhibited by
+physiological species would lead us into difficulties, and at this
+point they begin to be obvious; for if, as the result of spontaneous
+variation and of selective breeding, the progeny of a common stock may
+become separated into groups distinguished from one another by
+constant, not sexual, morphological characters, it is clear that the
+physiological definition of species is likely to clash with the
+morphological definition.  No one would hesitate to describe the pouter
+and the tumbler as distinct species, if they were found fossil, or if
+their skins and skeletons were imported, as those of exotic wild birds
+commonly are--and without doubt, if considered alone, they are good and
+distinct morphological species.  On the other hand, they are not
+physiological species, for they are descended from a common stock, the
+rock-pigeon.
+
+Under these circumstances, as it is admitted on all sides that races
+occur in Nature, how are we to know whether any apparently distinct
+animals are really of different physiological species, or not, seeing
+that the amount of morphological difference is no safe guide?  Is there
+any test of a physiological species?  The usual answer of physiologists
+is in the affirmative.  It is said that such a test is to be found in
+the phenomena of hybridization--in the results of crossing races, as
+compared with the results of crossing species.
+
+So far as the evidence goes at present, individuals, of what are
+certainly known to be mere races produced by selection, however
+distinct they may appear to be, not only breed freely together, but the
+offspring of such crossed races are only perfectly fertile with one
+another. Thus, the spaniel and the greyhound, the dray-horse and the
+Arab, the pouter and the tumbler, breed together with perfect freedom,
+and their mongrels, if matched with other mongrels of the same kind,
+are equally fertile.
+
+On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the individuals of many
+natural species are either absolutely infertile if crossed with
+individuals of other species, or, if they give rise to hybrid
+offspring, the hybrids so produced are infertile when paired together.
+The horse and the ass, for instance, if so crossed, give rise to the
+mule, and there is no certain evidence of offspring ever having been
+produced by a male and female mule.  The unions of the rock-pigeon and
+the ring-pigeon appear to be equally barren of result.  Here, then,
+says the physiologist, we have a means of distinguishing any two true
+species from any two varieties.  If a male and a female, selected from
+each group, produce offspring, and that offspring is fertile with others
+produced in the same way, the groups are races and not species.  If, on
+the other hand, no result ensues, or if the offspring are infertile
+with others produced in the same way, they are true physiological
+species.  The test would be an admirable one, if, in the first place, it
+were always practicable to apply it, and if, in the second, it always
+yielded results susceptible of a definite interpretation.
+Unfortunately, in the great majority of cases, this touchstone for
+species is wholly inapplicable.
+
+The constitution of many wild animals is so altered by confinement that
+they will not breed even with their own females, so that the negative
+results obtained from crosses are of no value; and the antipathy of
+wild animals of the same species for one another, or even of wild and
+tame members of the same species, is ordinarily so great, that it is
+hopeless to look for such unions in Nature.  The hermaphrodism of most
+plants, the difficulty in the way of insuring the absence of their own,
+or the proper working of other pollen, are obstacles of no less
+magnitude in applying the test to them.  And, in both animals and
+plants, is superadded the further difficulty, that experiments must be
+continued over a long time for the purpose of ascertaining the
+fertility of the mongrel or hybrid progeny, as well as of the first
+crosses from which they spring.
+
+Not only do these great practical difficulties lie in the way of
+applying the hybridization test, but even when this oracle can be
+questioned, its replies are sometimes as doubtful as those of Delphi.
+For example, cases are cited by Mr. Darwin, of plants which are more
+fertile with the pollen of another species than with their own; and
+there are others, such as certain 'fuci', whose male element will
+fertilize the ovule of a plant of distinct species, while the males of
+the latter species are ineffective with the females of the first.  So
+that, in the last-named instance, a physiologist, who should cross the
+two species in one way, would decide that they were true species; while
+another, who should cross them in the reverse way, would, with equal
+justice, according to the rule, pronounce them to be mere races.
+Several plants, which there is great reason to believe are mere
+varieties, are almost sterile when crossed; while both animals and
+plants, which have always been regarded by naturalists as of distinct
+species, turn out, when the test is applied, to be perfectly fertile.
+Again, the sterility or fertility of crosses seems to bear no relation
+to the structural resemblances or differences of the members of any two
+groups.
+
+Mr. Darwin has discussed this question with singular ability and
+circumspection, and his conclusions are summed up as follows, at page
+276 of his work:--
+
+"First crosses between forms sufficiently distinct to be ranked as
+species, and their hybrids, are very generally, but not universally,
+sterile.  The sterility is of all degrees, and is often so slight that
+the two most careful experimentalists who  have  ever lived have come to
+diametrically opposite conclusions in ranking forms by this test.  The
+sterility is innately variable in individuals of the same species, and
+is eminently susceptible of favourable and unfavourable conditions. The
+degree of sterility does not strictly follow systematic affinity, but is
+governed by several curious and complex laws.  It is generally
+different and sometimes widely different, in reciprocal crosses between
+the same two species.  It is not always equal in degree in a first
+cross, and in the hybrid produced from this cross.
+
+"In the same manner as in grafting trees, the capacity of one species or
+variety to take on another is incidental on generally unknown
+differences in their vegetative systems; so in crossing, the greater or
+less facility of one species to unite with another is incidental on
+unknown differences in their reproductive systems.  There is no more
+reason to think that species have been specially endowed with various
+degrees of sterility to prevent them crossing and breeding in Nature,
+than to think that trees have been specially endowed with various and
+somewhat analogous degrees of difficulty in being grafted together, in
+order to prevent them becoming inarched in our forests.
+
+"The sterility of first crosses between pure species, which have their
+reproductive systems perfect, seems to depend on several circumstances;
+in some cases largely on the early death of the embryo.  The sterility
+of hybrids which have their reproductive systems imperfect, and which
+have had this system and their whole organization disturbed by being
+compounded of two distinct species, seems closely allied to that
+sterility which so frequently affects pure species when their natural
+conditions of life have been disturbed.  This view is supported by a
+parallelism of another kind: namely, that the crossing of forms, only
+slightly different, is favourable to the vigour and fertility of the
+offspring; and that slight changes in the conditions of life are
+apparently favourable to the vigour and fertility of all organic beings.
+It is not surprising that the degree of difficulty in uniting two
+species, and the degree of sterility of their hybrid offspring, should
+generally correspond, though due to distinct causes; for both depend on
+the amount of difference of some kind between the species which are
+crossed.  Nor is it surprising that the facility of effecting a first
+cross, the fertility of hybrids produced from it, and the capacity of
+being grafted together--though this latter capacity evidently depends
+on widely different circumstances--should all run to a certain extent
+parallel with the systematic affinity of the forms which are subjected
+to experiment; for systematic affinity attempts to express all kinds of
+resemblance between all species.
+
+"First crosses between forms known to be varieties, or sufficiently
+alike to be considered as varieties, and their mongrel offspring, are
+very generally, but not quite universally, fertile.  Nor is this nearly
+general and perfect fertility surprising, when we remember how liable we
+are to argue in a circle with respect to varieties in a state of
+Nature; and when we remember that the greater number of varieties have
+been produced under domestication by the selection of mere external
+differences, and not of differences in the reproductive system.  In all
+other respects, excluding fertility, there is a close general
+resemblance between hybrids and mongrels."--Pp. 276-8.
+
+We fully agree with the general tenor of this weighty passage; but
+forcible as are these arguments, and little as the value of fertility
+or infertility as a test of species may be, it must not be forgotten
+that the really important fact, so far as the inquiry into the origin of
+species goes, is, that there are such things in Nature as groups of
+animals and of plants, whose members are incapable of fertile union
+with those of other groups; and that there are such things as hybrids,
+which are absolutely sterile when crossed with other hybrids.  For, if
+such phenomena as these were exhibited by only two of those assemblages
+of living objects, to which the name of species (whether it be used in
+its physiological or in its morphological sense) is given, it would
+have to be accounted for by any theory of the origin of species, and
+every theory which could not account for it would be, so far,
+imperfect.
+
+Up to this point, we have been dealing with matters of fact, and the
+statements which we have laid before the reader would, to the best of
+our knowledge, be admitted to contain a fair exposition of what is at
+present known respecting the essential properties of species, by all
+who have studied the question.  And whatever may be his theoretical
+views, no naturalist will probably be disposed to demur to the
+following summary of that exposition:--
+
+Living beings, whether animals or plants, are divisible into multitudes
+of distinctly definable kinds, which are morphological species.  They
+are also divisible into groups of individuals, which breed freely
+together, tending to reproduce their like, and are physiological
+species. Normally resembling their parents, the offspring of members of
+these species are still liable to vary; and the variation may be
+perpetuated by selection, as a race, which race, in many cases,
+presents all the characteristics of a morphological species.  But it is
+not as yet proved that a race ever exhibits, when crossed with another
+race of the same species, those phenomena of hybridization which are
+exhibited by many species when crossed with other species.  On the
+other hand, not only is it not proved that all species give rise to
+hybrids infertile 'inter se', but there is much reason to believe that,
+in crossing, species exhibit every gradation from perfect sterility to
+perfect fertility.
+
+Such are the most essential characteristics of species.  Even were man
+not one of them--a member of the same system and subject to the same
+laws--the question of their origin, their causal connexion, that is,
+with the other phenomena of the universe, must have attracted his
+attention, as soon as his intelligence had raised itself above the level
+of his daily wants.
+
+Indeed history relates that such was the case, and has embalmed for us
+the speculations upon the origin of living beings, which were among the
+earliest products of the dawning intellectual activity of man.  In
+those early days positive knowledge was not to be had, but the craving
+after it needed, at all hazards, to be satisfied, and according to the
+country, or the turn of thought, of the speculator, the suggestion that
+all living things arose from the mud of the Nile, from a primeval egg,
+or from some more anthropomorphic agency, afforded a sufficient
+resting-place for his curiosity.  The myths of Paganism are as dead as
+Osiris or Zeus, and the man who should revive them, in opposition to
+the knowledge of our time, would be justly laughed to scorn; but the
+coeval imaginations current among the rude inhabitants of Palestine,
+recorded by writers whose very name and age are admitted by every
+scholar to be unknown, have unfortunately not yet shared their fate,
+but, even at this day, are regarded by nine-tenths of the civilized
+world as the authoritative standard of fact and the criterion of the
+justice of scientific conclusions, in all that relates to the origin of
+things, and, among them, of species. In this nineteenth century, as at
+the dawn of modern physical science, the cosmogony of the
+semi-barbarous Hebrew is the incubus of the philosopher and the
+opprobrium of the orthodox. Who shall number the patient and earnest
+seekers after truth, from the days of Galileo until now, whose lives
+have been embittered and their good name blasted by the mistaken zeal
+of Bibliolaters?  Who shall count the host of weaker men whose sense of
+truth has been destroyed in the effort to harmonize
+impossibilities--whose life has been wasted in the attempt to force the
+generous new wine of Science into the old bottles of Judaism, compelled
+by the outcry of the same strong party?
+
+It is true that if philosophers have suffered, their cause has been
+amply avenged.  Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every
+science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history
+records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed,
+the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and
+crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain.  But orthodoxy is
+the Bourbon of the world of thought.  It learns not, neither can it
+forget; and though, at present, bewildered and afraid to move, it is as
+willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains
+the beginning and the end of sound science; and to visit, with such
+petty thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl, those who
+refuse to degrade Nature to the level of primitive Judaism.
+
+Philosophers, on the other hand, have no such aggressive tendencies.
+With eyes fixed on the noble goal to which "per aspera et ardua" they
+tend, they may, now and then, be stirred to momentary wrath by the
+unnecessary obstacles with which the ignorant, or the malicious,
+encumber, if they cannot bar, the difficult path; but why should their
+souls be deeply vexed? The majesty of Fact is on their side, and the
+elemental forces of Nature are working for them. Not a star comes to
+the meridian at its calculated time but testifies to the justice of
+their methods--their beliefs are "one with falling rain and with the
+growing corn."  By doubt they are established, and open inquiry is
+their bosom friend.  Such men have no fear of traditions however
+venerable, and no respect for them when they become mischievous and
+obstructive; but they have better than mere antiquarian business in
+hand, and if dogmas, which ought to be fossil but are not, are not
+forced upon their  notice, they are too happy to treat them as
+non-existent.
+
+The hypotheses respecting the origin of species which profess to stand
+upon a scientific basis, and, as such, alone demand serious attention,
+are of two kinds.  The one, the "special creation" hypothesis, presumes
+every species to have originated from one or more stocks, these not
+being the result of the modification of any other form of living
+matter--or arising by natural agencies--but being produced, as such, by
+a supernatural creative act.
+
+The other, the so-called "transmutation" hypothesis, considers that all
+existing species are the result of the modification of pre-existing
+species, and those of their predecessors, by agencies similar to those
+which at the present day produce varieties and races, and therefore in
+an altogether natural way; and it is a probable, though not a necessary
+consequence of this hypothesis, that all living beings have arisen from
+a single stock.  With respect to the origin of this primitive stock, or
+stocks, the doctrine of the origin of species is obviously not
+necessarily concerned.  The transmutation hypothesis, for example, is
+perfectly consistent either with the conception of a special creation
+of the primitive germ, or with the supposition of its having arisen, as
+a modification of inorganic matter, by natural causes.
+
+The doctrine of special creation owes its existence very largely to the
+supposed necessity of making science accord with the Hebrew cosmogony;
+but it is curious to observe that, as the doctrine is at present
+maintained by men of science, it is as hopelessly inconsistent with the
+Hebrew view as any other hypothesis.
+
+If there be any result which has come more clearly out of geological
+investigation than another, it is, that the vast series of extinct
+animals and plants is not divisible, as it was once supposed to be,
+into distinct groups, separated by sharply-marked boundaries.  There are
+no great gulfs between epochs and formations--no successive periods
+marked by the appearance of plants, of water animals, and of land
+animals, 'en masse'.  Every year adds to the list of links between what
+the older geologists supposed to be widely separated epochs: witness the
+crags linking the drift with older tertiaries; the Maestricht beds
+linking the tertiaries with the chalk; the St. Cassian beds exhibiting
+an abundant fauna of mixed mesozoic and palaeozoic types, in rocks of
+an epoch once supposed to be eminently poor in life; witness, lastly,
+the incessant disputes as to whether a given stratum shall be reckoned
+devonian or carboniferous, silurian or devonian, cambrian or silurian.
+
+This truth is further illustrated in a most interesting manner by the
+impartial and highly competent testimony of M. Pictet, from whose
+calculations of what percentage of the genera of animals, existing in
+any formation, lived during the preceding formation, it results that in
+no case is the proportion less than 'one-third', or 33 per cent.  It is
+the triassic formation, or the commencement of the mesozoic epoch,
+which has received the smallest inheritance from preceding ages.  The
+other formations not uncommonly exhibit 60, 80, or even 94 per cent. of
+genera in common with those whose remains are imbedded in their
+predecessor.  Not only is this true, but the subdivisions of each
+formation exhibit new species characteristic of, and found only in,
+them; and, in many cases, as in the lias for example, the separate beds
+of these subdivisions are distinguished by well-marked and peculiar
+forms of life.  A section, a hundred feet thick, will exhibit, at
+different heights, a dozen species of ammonite, none of which passes
+beyond its particular zone of limestone, or clay, into the zone below it
+or into that above it; so that those who adopt the doctrine of special
+creation must be prepared to admit, that at intervals of time,
+corresponding with the thickness of these beds, the Creator thought fit
+to interfere with the natural course of events for the purpose of
+making a new ammonite.  It is not easy to transplant oneself into the
+frame of mind of those who can accept such a conclusion as this, on any
+evidence short of absolute demonstration; and it is difficult to see
+what is to be gained by so doing, since, as we have said, it is obvious
+that such a view of the origin of living  beings is utterly opposed to
+the  Hebrew cosmogony.  Deserving no aid from the powerful arm of
+Bibliolatry, then, does the received form of the hypothesis of special
+creation derive any support from science or sound logic?  Assuredly not
+much.  The arguments brought forward in its favour all take one form:
+If species were not supernaturally created, we cannot understand the
+facts 'x' or 'y', or 'z'; we cannot understand the structure of animals
+or plants, unless we suppose they were contrived for special  ends; we
+cannot understand the structure of the eye, except by supposing it to
+have been made to see with; we cannot understand instincts, unless we
+suppose animals to have been miraculously endowed with them.
+
+As a question of dialectics, it must be admitted that this sort of
+reasoning is not very formidable to those who are not to be frightened
+by consequences.  It is an 'argumentum ad ignorantiam'--take this
+explanation or be ignorant.
+
+But suppose we prefer to admit our ignorance rather than adopt a
+hypothesis at variance with all the teachings of Nature?  Or, suppose
+for a moment we admit the explanation, and then seriously ask ourselves
+how much the wiser are we; what does the explanation explain?  Is  it
+any more than a grandiloquent way of announcing the fact, that we really
+know nothing about the matter?  A phenomenon is explained when it is
+shown to be a case of some general law of Nature; but the supernatural
+interposition of the Creator can, by the nature of the case, exemplify
+no law, and if species have really arisen in this way, it is absurd to
+attempt to discuss their origin.
+
+Or, lastly, let us ask ourselves whether any amount of evidence which
+the nature of our faculties permits us to attain, can justify us in
+asserting that any phenomenon is out of the reach of natural
+causation.  To this end it is obviously necessary that we should know
+all the consequences to which all possible combinations, continued
+through  unlimited time, can give rise.  If we knew these, and found
+none competent to originate species, we should have good ground for
+denying their origin by natural causation.  Till we know them, any
+hypothesis is better than one which involves us in such miserable
+presumption.
+
+But the hypothesis of special creation is not only a mere specious mask
+for our ignorance; its existence in Biology marks the youth and
+imperfection of the science.  For what is the history of every science
+but the history of the elimination of the notion of creative, or other
+interferences, with the natural order of the phenomena which are the
+subject-matter of that science?  When Astronomy was young "the morning
+stars sang together for joy," and the planets were guided in their
+courses by celestial hands.  Now, the harmony of the stars has resolved
+itself into gravitation according to the inverse squares of the
+distances, and the orbits of the planets are deducible from the laws of
+the forces which allow a schoolboy's stone to break a window.  The
+lightning was the angel of the Lord; but it has pleased Providence, in
+these modern times, that science should make it the humble messenger of
+man, and we know that every flash that shimmers about the horizon on a
+summer's evening is determined by ascertainable conditions, and that
+its direction and brightness might, if our knowledge of these were
+great enough, have been calculated.
+
+The solvency of great mercantile companies rests on the validity of the
+laws which have been ascertained to govern the seeming irregularity of
+that human life which the moralist bewails as the most uncertain of
+things; plague, pestilence, and famine are admitted, by all but fools,
+to be the natural result of causes for the most part fully within human
+control, and not the unavoidable tortures inflicted by wrathful
+Omnipotence upon His helpless handiwork.
+
+Harmonious order governing eternally continuous progress--the web and
+woof of matter and force interweaving by slow degrees, without a broken
+thread, that veil which lies between us and the Infinite--that universe
+which alone we know or can know; such is the picture which science
+draws of the world, and in proportion as any part of that picture is in
+unison with the rest, so may we feel sure that it is rightly painted.
+Shall  Biology alone remain out of harmony with her sister sciences?
+
+Such arguments against the hypothesis of the direct creation of species
+as these are plainly enough deducible from general considerations; but
+there are, in addition, phenomena exhibited by species themselves, and
+yet not so much a  part of their very essence as to have required
+earlier mention, which are in the highest degree perplexing, if we adopt
+the popularly accepted hypothesis.  Such are the facts of distribution
+in space and in time; the singular phenomena brought to light by the
+study of development; the structural relations of species upon which
+our systems of classification are founded; the great doctrines of
+philosophical anatomy, such as that of homology, or of the community of
+structural plan exhibited by large groups of species differing  very
+widely in  their habits and functions.
+
+The  species of animals which inhabit the sea on  opposite sides of the
+isthmus of Panama are wholly distinct* the animals and plants which
+inhabit islands are commonly distinct from those of the neighbouring
+mainlands, and yet have a similarity of aspect.
+
+    [footnote] *Recent investigations tend to show that this
+    statement is not strictly accurate.--1870.
+
+The mammals of the latest tertiary epoch in the Old and New Worlds
+belong to the same genera, or family groups, as those which now inhabit
+the same great geographical area.  The crocodilian reptiles which
+existed in the earliest secondary epoch were similar in general
+structure to those now living, but exhibit slight differences in their
+vertebrae, nasal passages, and one  or two other points.  The
+guinea-pig has teeth which are shed before it is  born, and hence can
+never subserve the masticatory purpose for which they seem contrived,
+and, in like manner, the female dugong has tusks which never cut the
+gum.  All the members of the same great group run through similar
+conditions in their development, and all their parts, in the adult
+state, are arranged according to the same plan.  Man is more like a
+gorilla than a gorilla is like a lemur.  Such are a few, taken at
+random, among the multitudes of similar facts which modern research has
+established; but when the student seeks for an explanation of them from
+the supporters of the received hypothesis of the origin of species, the
+reply he receives is, in substance, of Oriental simplicity and
+brevity--"Mashallah! it so pleases God!"  There are different species on
+opposite sides of the isthmus of Panama, because they were created
+different on the two sides.  The pliocene mammals are like the existing
+ones, because such was the plan of creation; and we find rudimental
+organs and similarity of plan, because it has pleased the Creator to set
+before Himself a "divine exemplar or archetype," and to copy it in His
+works; and somewhat ill, those who hold this view imply, in  some of
+them.  That such verbal hocus-pocus should be received as science will
+one day be regarded as evidence of the low state of intelligence in the
+nineteenth century, just as we amuse ourselves with the  phraseology
+about Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum, wherewith Torricelli's
+compatriots were satisfied to explain the rise of water in a pump.  And
+be it recollected that this sort of satisfaction works not only
+negative but positive ill, by discouraging inquiry, and so depriving
+man of the usufruct of one of the most fertile fields of his great
+patrimony, Nature.
+
+The objections to the doctrine of the origin of species by special
+creation which have been detailed, must have occurred, with more or
+less force, to the mind of every one who has seriously and
+independently considered the subject.  It is therefore no wonder that,
+from time to time, this hypothesis should have been met by counter
+hypotheses, all as well, and some better founded than itself; and it is
+curious to remark that the inventors of the opposing views seem to have
+been led into them as  much by their knowledge of geology, as by their
+acquaintance with biology.  In fact, when the mind has once admitted the
+conception of the gradual production of the present physical state of
+our globe, by natural causes operating through long ages of time, it
+will be little disposed to allow that living beings have made their
+appearance in another way, and the speculations of De Maillet and his
+successors are the natural complement of Scilla's demonstration of the
+true nature of fossils.
+
+A contemporary of Newton and of Leibnitz, sharing therefore in the
+intellectual activity of the remarkable age which witnessed the birth
+of modern physical science, Benoit de Maillet spent a long life as a
+consular agent of the French Government in various Mediterranean ports.
+For sixteen years, in fact, he held the office of Consul-General in
+Egypt,  and the wonderful phenomena offered by the valley of the Nile
+appear to  have strongly impressed his mind, to have directed his
+attention to all facts of a similar order which came within his
+observation, and to have led him to speculate on the origin of the
+present condition of our globe and of its inhabitants.  But, with all
+his ardour for science, De Maillet seems to have hesitated to publish
+views which, notwithstanding the ingenious attempts to reconcile them
+with the Hebrew hypothesis contained in the preface to "Telliamed,"
+were hardly likely to be received with favour by his contemporaries.
+
+But a short time had elapsed since more than one of the great anatomists
+and physicists of the Italian school had paid dearly for their
+endeavours to dissipate some of the prevalent errors; and their
+illustrious pupil, Harvey, the founder of modern physiology, had not
+fared so well, in a country less oppressed by  the benumbing influences
+of theology, as to tempt any man to follow his example.  Probably not
+uninfluenced by these considerations, his Catholic majesty's
+Consul-General for Egypt kept his theories to himself throughout a long
+life, for 'Telliamed,' the only scientific work which is known to have
+proceeded from his  pen, was not printed till 1735, when its author had
+reached the ripe age of seventy-nine; and though De Maillet lived three
+years longer, his book was not given to the world before 1748.  Even
+then it was anonymous to those who were not in the secret of the
+anagrammatic character of its title; and the preface and dedication are
+so worded as, in case of necessity, to give the printer a fair chance
+of falling back on the excuse that the work was intended for a mere 'jeu
+d'esprit'.
+
+The speculations of the suppositious Indian sage, though quite as sound
+as those of many a "Mosaic Geology," which sells exceedingly well, have
+no great value  if we consider them by the light of modern science.  The
+waters are supposed to have originally covered the whole globe; to have
+deposited the rocky masses which compose its mountains by processes
+comparable to those which are now forming mud, sand, and shingle; and
+then to have gradually lowered their level, leaving the spoils of their
+animal and vegetable inhabitants embedded in the strata.  As the dry
+land appeared, certain of the aquatic animals are supposed to have
+taken to it, and to have become gradually adapted to terrestrial and
+aerial modes of existence.  But if we regard the general tenor and style
+of the reasoning in relation to the state of knowledge of the day, two
+circumstances appear very well worthy of remark.  The first, that De
+Maillet had a notion of the modifiability of living forms (though
+without any precise information on the subject), and  how such
+modifiability might account for  the origin of species; the second,
+that he very clearly apprehended the great modern geological doctrine,
+so strongly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and comprehensively
+expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes for the
+explanation of past geological events.  Indeed, the following passage
+of the preface, in which De Maillet is supposed to speak of the Indian
+philosopher Telliamed,  his 'alter ego', might have been written  by
+the most philosophical uniformitarian of the present day:--
+
+"Ce qu'il y a d'etonnant, est que pour arriver a ces connoissances il
+semble avoir perverti l'ordre naturel, puisqu'au lieu de s'attacher
+d'abord a rechercher l'origine de notre globe il a commence par
+travailler a s'instruire de la nature.  Mais a l'entendre, ce
+renversement de l'ordre a ete pour lui l'effet d'un genie favorable qui
+l'a conduit pas a pas et comme par la main aux decouvertes les plus
+sublimes.  C'est en decomposant la substance de ce globe par une
+anatomie exacte de toutes ses parties qu'il a premierement appris de
+quelles matieres il etait compose et quels arrangemens ces memes
+matieres observaient entre elles.  Ces lumieres jointes a l'esprit de
+comparaison toujours necessaire a quiconque entreprend de percer les
+voiles dont la nature aime a se cacher, ont servi de guide a notre
+philosophe pour parvenir a des connoissances plus interessantes.  Par
+la matiere et l'arrangement de ces compositions il pretend avoir
+reconnu quelle est la veritable origine de ce globe que nous habitons,
+comment et par qui il a ete forme."--Pp. xix. xx.
+
+But De Maillet was before his age, and as could hardly fail to happen to
+one who speculated on a zoological and botanical question before
+Linnaeus, and on a physiological problem before Haller, he fell into
+great errors here and there; and hence, perhaps, the  general neglect of
+his work.  Robinet's speculations are rather behind, than in advance
+of, those of De Maillet; and though Linnaeus may have played with the
+hypothesis of transmutation, it obtained no serious support until
+Lamarck adopted it, and advocated it with great ability in his
+'Philosophie Zoologique.'
+
+Impelled towards the hypothesis of the transmutation of species, partly
+by his general cosmological and geological views; partly by the
+conception of a graduated, though irregularly branching, scale of
+being, which had arisen out of his profound study of plants and of the
+lower forms of animal life, Lamarck, whose general line of thought often
+closely resembles that of De Maillet, made a great advance upon the
+crude and merely speculative manner in which that writer deals with the
+question of the origin of living beings, by endeavouring to find
+physical causes competent to effect that change of one species into
+another, which De Maillet had only supposed to occur.  And Lamarck
+conceived that he had found in Nature such causes, amply sufficient for
+the purpose in view.  It is a physiological fact, he says, that organs
+are increased in size by action, atrophied by inaction; it is another
+physiological fact that modifications produced are transmissible to
+offspring.  Change the actions of an animal, therefore, and you will
+change its structure, by increasing the development of the parts newly
+brought into use and by the diminution of those less used; but by
+altering the circumstances which surround it you will alter its
+actions, and hence, in the long run, change of circumstance must
+produce change of organization.  All the species of animals, therefore,
+are, in Lamarck's view, the result of the indirect action of changes of
+circumstance, upon those primitive germs which he considered to have
+originally arisen, by spontaneous generation, within the waters of the
+globe.  It is curious, however, that Lamarck should insist so strongly*
+as he has done, that circumstances never in any degree directly modify
+the form or the organization of animals, but only operate by changing
+their wants and consequently their actions; for he thereby brings upon
+himself the obvious question, how, then, do plants, which cannot be
+said to have wants or actions, become modified?  To this  he replies,
+that they are modified by the changes in their nutritive processes,
+which are effected by changing circumstances; and it does not seem to
+have occurred to him that such changes might be as well supposed to
+take place among animals.
+
+    [footnote] *See 'Phil. Zoologique,' vol. i. p. 222, 'et seq.'
+
+When we have said that Lamarck felt that mere speculation was not the
+way to arrive at the origin of species, but that it was necessary, in
+order to the establishment of any sound theory on the subject, to
+discover by observation or otherwise, some 'vera causa', competent to
+give rise to them; that he affirmed the true order of classification to
+coincide with the order of their development one from another; that he
+insisted on the necessity of allowing sufficient time, very  strongly;
+and that all the varieties of instinct and reason were traced back by
+him to the same cause as that which has given rise to species, we have
+enumerated his chief contributions to the advance of the question.  On
+the other hand, from his ignorance of any power in Nature competent to
+modify the structure of animals,  except the development of parts, or
+atrophy of them, in consequence of a change of needs, Lamarck was led
+to attach infinitely greater weight than it deserves to this agency,
+and the absurdities into which he was led have met with deserved
+condemnation.  Of the struggle for existence, on which, as we shall see,
+Mr. Darwin lays such great stress, he had no conception; indeed, he
+doubts whether there really are such things as extinct species, unless
+they be such large animals as may have met their death at the hands of
+man; and so little does he dream of there being any other destructive
+causes at work, that, in discussing the possible existence of fossil
+shells, he asks, "Pourquoi d'ailleurs seroient-ils perdues des que
+l'homme n'a pu operer leur destruction?" ('Phil. Zool.,' vol. i. p.
+77.)  Of the influence of selection Lamarck has as little notion, and he
+makes no use of the wonderful phenomena which are exhibited by
+domesticated animals, and illustrate its powers. The vast influence of
+Cuvier was employed against the Lamarckian views, and, as the
+untenability of some of his conclusions was easily shown, his doctrines
+sank under the opprobrium of scientific, as well as of theological,
+heterodoxy.  Nor have the efforts made of late years to revive them
+tended to re-establish their credit in the minds of sound thinkers
+acquainted with the facts of the case; indeed it may be doubted whether
+Lamarck has not suffered more from his friends than from his foes.
+
+Two years ago, in fact, though we venture to question if even the
+strongest supporters of the special creation hypothesis had not, now
+and then, an uneasy consciousness that all was not right, their
+position seemed more impregnable than ever, if not by its own inherent
+strength, at any rate by the obvious failure of all the attempts which
+had been made to carry it.  On the other hand, however much the few,
+who thought deeply on the question of species, might be repelled by the
+generally received dogmas, they saw no way of escaping from them save by
+the adoption of suppositions so little justified by experiment or by
+observation as to be at least equally distasteful.
+
+The choice lay between two absurdities and a middle condition of uneasy
+scepticism; which last, however unpleasant and unsatisfactory, was
+obviously the only justifiable state of mind under the circumstances.
+
+Such being the general ferment in the minds of naturalists, it is no
+wonder that they mustered strong in the rooms of the Linnaean Society,
+on the 1st of July of the year 1858, to hear two papers by authors
+living on opposite sides of the globe, working out their results
+independently, and yet professing to have discovered one and the same
+solution of all the problems connected with species.  The one of these
+authors was an able naturalist, Mr.  Wallace, who had been employed for
+some years in studying the productions of the islands of the Indian
+Archipelago, and who had forwarded a memoir embodying his views to Mr.
+Darwin, for communication to the Linnaean Society.  On perusing the
+essay, Mr. Darwin was not a little surprised to find that it embodied
+some of the leading ideas of a great work which he had been preparing
+for twenty years, and parts of which, containing a development of the
+very same views, had been perused by his private friends fifteen or
+sixteen years before. Perplexed in what manner to do full justice both
+to his friend and to himself, Mr. Darwin placed the matter in the hands
+of Dr. Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell, by whose advice he communicated a
+brief abstract of his own views to the Linnaean Society, at the same
+time that Mr. Wallace's paper was read.  Of that abstract, the work on
+the 'Origin of Species' is  an enlargement; but a complete statement of
+Mr.  Darwin's doctrine is looked for in the large and well-illustrated
+work which he is said to be preparing for publication.
+
+The Darwinian hypothesis has the merit of being eminently simple and
+comprehensible in principle, and its essential positions may be stated
+in a very few words: all species have been produced by the development
+of varieties from common stocks; by the conversion of these, first into
+permanent races and then into new species, by the process of 'natural
+selection', which process is essentially identical with that artificial
+selection by which man has originated the races of domestic
+animals--the 'struggle for existence' taking the place of man, and
+exerting, in the case of natural selection, that selective action which
+he performs in artificial selection.
+
+The evidence brought forward by Mr. Darwin in support of his hypothesis
+is of three kinds. First, he endeavours to prove that species may be
+originated by selection; secondly, he attempts to show that natural
+causes are competent to exert selection; and thirdly, he tries to prove
+that the most remarkable and apparently anomalous phenomena exhibited by
+the distribution, development, and mutual relations of species, can be
+shown to be deducible from the general doctrine of their origin, which
+he propounds, combined with the known facts of geological change; and
+that, even if all these phenomena are not at present explicable by it,
+none are necessarily inconsistent with it.
+
+There cannot be a doubt that the method of inquiry which Mr. Darwin has
+adopted is not only rigorously in accordance with the canons of
+scientific logic, but that it is the only adequate method.  Critics
+exclusively trained in classics or in mathematics, who have never
+determined a scientific fact in their lives by induction from
+experiment or observation, prate learnedly about Mr. Darwin's method,
+which is not inductive enough, not Baconian enough, forsooth, for
+them.  But even if practical acquaintance with the process of scientific
+investigation is denied them, they may learn, by the perusal of Mr.
+Mill's admirable chapter "On the Deductive Method," that there are
+multitudes of scientific inquiries in which the method of pure
+induction helps the investigator but a very little way.
+
+"The mode of investigation," says Mr. Mill, "which, from the proved
+inapplicability of direct methods of observation and experiment,
+remains to us as the main source of the  knowledge we possess, or can
+acquire, respecting the conditions and laws of recurrence of the more
+complex phenomena, is called, in its most general expression, the
+deductive method, and consists of three operations: the first, one of
+direct induction; the second, of ratiocination; and the third, of
+verification."
+
+Now, the conditions which have determined the existence of species are
+not only exceedingly complex, but, so far as the great majority of them
+are concerned, are necessarily beyond our cognizance.  But what Mr.
+Darwin has attempted to do is in exact accordance with the rule laid
+down by Mr. Mill; he has endeavoured to determine certain great facts
+inductively, by observation and experiment; he has then reasoned from
+the data thus furnished; and lastly, he has tested the validity of his
+ratiocination by comparing his deductions with the observed facts of
+Nature.  Inductively, Mr. Darwin endeavours to prove that species arise
+in a given way. Deductively, he desires to show that, if they arise in
+that way, the facts of distribution, development, classification, etc.,
+may be accounted for, 'i.e.' may be deduced from their mode of origin,
+combined with admitted changes in physical geography and climate, during
+an indefinite period.  And  this explanation, or coincidence of
+observed with deduced facts, is, so far as it extends, a verification
+of the Darwinian view.
+
+There is no fault to be found with Mr. Darwin's method, then; but it is
+another question whether he has fulfilled all the conditions imposed by
+that method.  Is it satisfactorily proved, in fact, that species may be
+originated by selection?  that there is such a thing as natural
+selection?  that none of the phenomena exhibited by species are
+inconsistent with the origin of species in this way?  If these
+questions can be answered in the affirmative, Mr. Darwin's view steps
+out of the rank of  hypotheses into those of proved theories; but, so
+long as the evidence at present adduced falls short of enforcing that
+affirmation, so long, to our minds, must the new doctrine be content to
+remain among the former--an extremely valuable, and in the highest
+degree probable, doctrine, indeed the only extant hypothesis which is
+worth anything in a scientific point of view; but still a hypothesis,
+and not yet the theory of species.
+
+After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against Mr.
+Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence
+stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all
+the characters exhibited by species in Nature, has ever been originate
+by selection, whether artificial or natural.  Groups having the
+morphological character of species, distinct and permanent races in
+fact, have been so produced over and over again; but there is no
+positive evidence, at present, that any group of animals has, by
+variation and selective breeding, given rise to another group which
+was, even in the least degree, infertile with the first.  Mr. Darwin is
+perfectly aware of this weak point, and brings forward a multitude of
+ingenious and important arguments to diminish the force of the
+objection.  We admit the value of these arguments to their fullest
+extent; nay, we will go so far as to express our belief that
+experiments, conducted by a skilful physiologist, would very probably
+obtain the desired production of  mutually more or less infertile
+breeds from a common stock, in a comparatively few years;  but still,
+as the case stands at present, this "little rift within the  lute" is
+not to be disguised nor overlooked.
+
+In the remainder of Mr. Darwin's argument our own private ingenuity has
+not hitherto enabled us to pick holes of any great importance; and
+judging by what we hear and read, other adventurers in the same field
+do not seem to have been much more fortunate.  It has been urged, for
+instance, that in his chapters on the struggle for existence and on
+natural selection, Mr. Darwin does not so much prove that natural
+selection does occur, as that it must occur; but, in fact, no other
+sort of demonstration is attainable.  A race does not attract our
+attention in Nature until it has, in all probability, existed for a
+considerable time, and then it is too late to inquire into the
+conditions of its origin.  Again, it is said that there is no real
+analogy between the selection which takes place under domestication, by
+human influence, and any operation which can be effected by Nature, for
+man interferes intelligently.  Reduced to its elements, this argument
+implies that an effect produced with trouble by an intelligent agent
+must, 'a fortiori', be more troublesome, if not impossible, to an
+unintelligent agent.  Even putting aside the question whether Nature,
+acting as she does according to definite and invariable laws, can be
+rightly called an unintelligent agent, such a position as this is wholly
+untenable.  Mix salt and sand, and it shall puzzle the wisest of  men,
+with his mere natural appliances, to separate all the grains of sand
+from all the grains of salt; but a shower of rain will effect the same
+object in ten minutes.  And so, while man may find it tax all his
+intelligence to separate any variety which  arises, and to breed
+selectively from it, the destructive agencies incessantly at work in
+Nature, if they find one variety to be more soluble in circumstances
+than the other, will inevitably, in the long run, eliminate it.
+
+A frequent and a just objection to the Lamarckian hypothesis of the
+transmutation of species is based upon the absence of transitional
+forms between many species.  But against the Darwinian hypothesis this
+argument has no force.  Indeed, one of the most valuable and suggestive
+parts of Mr. Darwin's work is that in which he proves, that the frequent
+absence of transitions is a necessary consequence of his doctrine, and
+that the stock whence two or more species have sprung, need in no
+respect be intermediate between these species.  If  any two species
+have arisen from a common stock in the same way as the carrier and the
+pouter, say, have arisen from the rock-pigeon, then the common stock of
+these two species need be no more intermediate between the two than the
+rock-pigeon is between  the carrier and pouter. Clearly appreciate the
+force of this analogy, and all the arguments against the origin of
+species by selection, based  on the absence of transitional forms, fall
+to the ground.  And Mr. Darwin's position might, we think, have been
+even stronger than it is if he had not embarrassed himself with the
+aphorism,  "Natura  non facit  saltum," which turns up so often in his
+pages.  We believe, as we have said above, that Nature does make jumps
+now and then, and a recognition of the fact is of no small importance
+in disposing of many minor objections to  the doctrine of
+transmutation.
+
+But we must pause.  The discussion of Mr. Darwin's arguments in detail
+would lead us far beyond the limits within which we proposed, at
+starting, to confine this article.  Our object has been  attained if we
+have given an intelligible, however brief, account of the established
+facts connected with species, and of the relation of the explanation of
+those facts offered by Mr.  Darwin to the theoretical views held by his
+predecessors and his contemporaries, and, above all, to the
+requirements of scientific logic.  We have ventured to point out that it
+does not, as yet, satisfy all those requirements; but we do not
+hesitate to assert that it is as superior to any preceding or
+contemporary hypothesis, in the extent of observational and experimental
+basis on which it rests, in its rigorously scientific method, and in
+its power of explaining biological phenomena, as was the hypothesis of
+Copernicus to the speculations of Ptolemy.  But the planetary orbits
+turned out to be not quite circular after all, and, grand as was the
+service Copernicus rendered to science, Kepler and Newton had to come
+after him.  What if the orbit of Darwinism should  be a little too
+circular?  What if species should offer residual phenomena, here and
+there, not explicable by natural selection? Twenty years hence
+naturalists may be in  a position to say whether this is, or is not, the
+case; but in either event they will owe the author of 'The Origin of
+Species' an immense debt of gratitude.  We should leave a very wrong
+impression on the reader's mind if we permitted him to suppose that the
+value of that work depends wholly on the ultimate justification of the
+theoretical views which it contains.  On the contrary, if they were
+disproved to-morrow, the book would still be the best of its kind--the
+most compendious statement of well-sifted facts bearing on the doctrine
+of species that has  ever appeared.  The chapters on Variation, on the
+Struggle for Existence, on Instinct, on Hybridism, on the Imperfection
+of the Geological Record, on Geographical Distribution, have not only
+no equals, but, so far as our knowledge goes, no competitors, within
+the range of biological literature.  And viewed as a whole, we do not
+believe that, since the publication of Von Baer's Researches on
+Development, thirty years ago, any work has appeared calculated to
+exert so large an influence, not only on the future of Biology, but in
+extending the domination of Science over regions of thought into which
+she has, as yet, hardly penetrated.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Origin of Species, by Huxley
+
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