xii.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 295 



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 any- 

 thing 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 cur clear conviction 

 that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven 

 that a group of animals, having all the characters exhi- 

 bited by species in Nature, has ever been originated by 

 selection, whether artificial or natural. Groups having 

 the morphological character of species, distinct and per- 

 manent 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 di- 

 minish 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, con- 

 ducted 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 



