CHAPTER XXV. 



CONCLUDING REFLEXIONS. 



To attempt at this stage any summary of conclusions would be 

 misleading. The first object of this work is not to set forth in 

 the present a doctrine, or to advertise a solution of the problem of 

 Species, but rather to bring together materials that may help 

 others hereafter to proceed with the solution of that problem. A 

 general enumeration of particular conclusions is therefore to be 

 avoided. Indeed, from the scantiness of the evidence, its present 

 value is chiefly in suggestion, and the facts must therefore be 

 themselves still studied in detail. The reader must interpret as 

 he will. 



But, as often happens, that which may not shew the right road 

 is enough to shew that the way taken has been wrong, and so is it 

 with this evidence. Upon the accepted view it is held that the 

 Discontinuity of Species has been brought about by a Natural 

 Selection of particular terms in a continuous series of variations. 

 Of the difficulties besetting this doctrine enough was said in the 

 introductory pages. These difficulties have oppressed all who have 

 thought upon these matters for themselves, and they have caused 

 some anxiety even to the faithful. And if in face of the difficulties 

 reasonable men have still held on, it has not been that the obstacles 

 were unseen, but rather that they have hoped a way through them 

 would be found. 



Now the evidence, of which a sample has been here presented, 

 gives hope that though there be no way through the difficulties, there 

 is still perhaps a way round them. For since all the difficulties grew 

 out of the assumption that the course of Variation is continuous, 

 with evidence that Variation may be discontinuous, for the present 

 at least the course is clear again. 



Such evidence as to certain selected forms of variations has, 

 I submit, been given in these chapters, and so far a presumption 

 is created that the Discontinuity of which Species is an expression 

 has its origin not in the environment, nor in any phenomenon of 

 Adaptation, but in the intrinsic nature of organisms themselves, 

 manifested in the original Discontinuity of Variation. 



But this evidence serves a double purpose. Though some may 



