THE LOGIC OF DARWINISM 



By ARCHER WILDE 



By common consent, the great discovery of Darwin and Wallace 

 has long been considered to be as fully and finally established as 

 one of the most important of natural laws; their names are enrolled 

 among the immortals and their work forms the base upon which 

 all must take their stand who would peer yet further into the 

 secrets of life. Yet Darwinism still seems new and its bearings 

 even on strictly biological problems are far from being fully 

 worked out. It has been stated recently that " Biology to-day 

 teems with mutually incongruous opinions." The science has 

 hardly emerged from the state of ferment into which it was 

 thrown by a discovery which utterly subverted the old order 

 while necessarily supplying, at first, only the framework of the 

 new. There is therefore the less reason for surprise if, as I 

 shall attempt to show, the logical proof upon which the theory 

 of Natural Selection rests be not justly estimated by the 

 educated world at large. Some may perhaps ask — as long as 

 the theory is fully accepted, what does it matter upon what 

 grounds it may be based ? but I feel sure that more will agree 

 with the view that the great importance of the subject and its 

 intimate bearing upon social and political questions render 

 superfluous any apology for an endeavour to secure a fresh 

 survey of the ground on which Darwin built, if any reasonable 

 cause can be shown for it. 



I have long held the opinion that the strength of Darwin's 

 argument has been seriously under-estimated in this — that the 

 theory is regarded as still awaiting the final proof afforded 

 by experiment. Whether or no this may be partly a lingering 

 effect of his great and possibly even excessive modesty is 

 an interesting question which I cannot now touch ; the fact 

 remains that, even among the most convinced supporters of the 

 theory of Natural Selection, it is common to find writers who 

 state or imply that the theory is susceptible, in this way, of 

 a higher kind of proof than it has yet received. For instance, 



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