102 ON THE LATEST FORM OF THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 
e 
lative Variation — and that of a vast number of successive steps — will account for 
the common origin of animals which will not copulate with each other, or of plants 
which cannot be crossed. 
Now, on this cardinal point, which contains the essence of the Development Theory, 
since all the other questions involved in it are of no substantive importance, so far as 
what may be called the Philosophy of Creation is concerned, the direct evidence fails 
altogether, and we are left exclusively to the guidance of conjecture and analogy and 
estimates of what is possible for all that we know to the contrary. It is not even 
pretended that we have any direct proof, either from observation or testimony, that 
two Species so distinct that they will not interbreed have yet sprung from common 
ancestors. On the contrary, Mr. Darwin's own supposition is, that the process of de- 
veloping two entirely distinct Species out of a third is necessarily so gradual and pro- 
tracted as to require a quasi eternity for its completion, so that only a small portion 
of it could have been accomplished during the limited period of man's existence upon 
the earth. 
In the absence of any direct proof, then, it remains to be inquired if there are 
sufficient grounds of probability, reasoning from analogy and the principles of in- 
ductive logic, for believing that all Species of animals and plants may have originated 
from three or four progenitors. In speaking of the amount and frequency of Individ- 
ual Variation, Mr. Darwin and his followers abuse the word fendency. After heaping 
up as many isolated examples of it as they can gather, they assert the legitimate in- 
ference from such cases to be, that the species tends to vary, leaving out of view the 
fact that a vastly larger number of individuals of the same species do not vary, but 
conform to the general type. And though only one out of a hundred of these Indi- 
vidual Variations is transmitted by inheritance, yet, after collecting as many instances 
of such transmission as they can find, they affirm that a Variation fends to become 
hereditable. But it is not so. Tendency is rightly inferred only from the majority of 
cases; a small minority of favorable instances merely shows the tendency to be the 
other way. Thus, the cars do not fend to run off the track, although one train out 
of a thousand may be unlucky enough to do so; but the general law is, that they 
remain on the track. Otherwise, people would not risk their lives in them. ‘So a 
considerable number of children have been born with six fingers on each hand, and a 
still greater number with harelips. And yet we say that the tendency is for-each hand 
to have only five fingers, and for the upper lip and palate to be closed. The advocates 
of the Development Theory violate the first principles of inductive logic, by founding ` 
their induction not, as they should do, on the majority — the great majority — of cases, 
