18G4.] - 227 



the Pointer-dog ? Or to find a species of wild sheep with a tail so large 

 and fat, that it has to be supported by a little wagon, as in certain 

 exotic breeds of tame sheep ? 



That it may not be said that I rely upon a single isolated passage, to 



substantiate the grave charge brought against Prof. Agassiz, I will 



quote a second passage to the same effect. 



The influence of man upon animals is, in other words, the action of mind 

 upon them ; and yet the ordinary mode of arguing upon this subjeet is, that 

 because the intelligence of man has been able to produce certain varieties in 

 domesticated animals, therefore physical causes have produced all the diversity 

 existing among wild ones. Surely the sounder logic would be to infer, that, 

 because our finite intelligence may cause the original pattern to vary by some 

 slight shades of difference, therefore a superior intelligence must have estab- 

 lished all the boundless diversity of which our boasted varieties are but the 

 faintest echo. [Meth. St., p. 142.) 



To my mind, the sound logical inference from the above premises 

 would be, that " a superior intelligence must have caused the original 

 pattern to vary hy very great differences, of which our boasted varie- 

 ties are but the faintest echo," which is precisely the Darwinian doc- 

 trine. But the passage is quoted, not for the sake of criticising its 

 logic, but to prove how utterly the views of Mr. Darwin, or what must be 

 supposed to be those of Mr. Darwin, are misapprehended and misstated. 



In opposition to the principles of the Darwinian theory, as expounded 

 above. Prof. Agassiz says, that " there is not a fact known to science tend- 

 ing to show that any being, in the natural process of reproduction and 

 multiplication, has ever diverged from the course natural to its kind " 

 (p. 281); and that the naturalist "never sees any animal diverge in 

 the slightest degree from its own structural character" (p. 318). Now 

 Hagen has shown satisfactorily that the European Onychogoniphus for- 

 cipatus and Cordulegaster annulatus diverge most remarkably in their 

 structural characters, in certain localities, from the normal type, and 

 that all the intermediate grades occur in other localities. (J/on. Gomph. 

 pp. 28 — 40, and Plate 2 ; pp. 333 — 7, and Plate 17.) Loew has shown 

 the same thing of the European Gyinnopternus Sahlbergii and Empis 

 maculata {Amber- Dipt. p. 323); and similar cases are familiar to every 

 well-informed entomologist. Prof. Agassiz may perhaps argue in such 

 instances as these that it is natural to them to diverge thus, and that 

 in diverging thus " they do not diverge from the course natural to 



