A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTIONS 107 



supposed to prevail at all in at least one whole department of animal 

 life — the aquatic,'''' or " that the struggle for life could have no scope 

 for exercise among the lower forms of life," etc., etc, ? The truth can 

 only be that this A\Titer has either never read Darwin at all, or that he 

 has forgotten the most distinctive principles of which Darwinism con- 

 sists. For, it would be needless to tell nine persons out of ten who 

 may read this reply, that Darwin is most explicit in assigning a very 

 subordinate place to the function of actual contest in the struggle for 

 existence ; he supposes a host of other agencies to be of far more im- 

 portance in determining the fitness of the survivors— a host, indeed, 

 which it is literally true that no man can number. Doubtless the 

 poetic force of Mr. Darwin's metaphor has ludicrously misled his 

 critic ; and, if the latter were to substitute for it some such term as 

 Competition for Life, it is impossible that we could hear anything 

 more even from the " feeblest " unfortunate among the strugglers 

 against evolution, about being unable to understand how the principle 

 could apply to the lower forms of life. 



The remarks, then, which I have quoted concerning natural selec- 

 tion clearly prove that that writer has either never read, or has entirely 

 forgotten, the " Origin of Species." His remarks simultaneously quoted 

 concerning sexual selection further prove that he has either never read, 

 or has entirely forgotten, the " Descent of Man." Otherwise it would 

 have been imposgible for him to waite, with all the added emphasis 

 supplied by a mark of admiration, " Surely there is but scant room for 

 the hypothesis of a * struggle for life,' and still less for that of ' selec- 

 tion in relation to sex,' among fishes ! " A reviewer has a perfect right 

 to differ to any extent he pleases with the writer whom he reviews, 

 provided that he gives some evidence of having read the works of that 

 writer ; but a man who, " listening to the suggestions of his o^oi 

 mind," thinks that he is making a strong point by propounding, as a 

 reductio ad absurdicm, a belief which the author he reviews has brought 

 a large quantity of evidence to support — such a man can only be 

 deemed a foolish adventurer in the province of criticism. Whether or 

 not sexual selection obtains among fish may properly be regarded as 

 an open question, and the supposition that it does may, perhaps, seem 

 to some persons unlikely, even after they have read all that Darwin 

 has to say upon the subject. But any dubiousness of the doctrine 

 itself does not affect the evidence, which is supplied by the reductio 

 ad ahsurdum form, that the reviewer is ignorant that Darwin has 

 seriously advocated the possibility of sexual selection occurring among 

 certain aquatic animals. 



Having spoken of the reviewer's ignorance of the " Origin of Spe- 

 cies " and the " Descent of Man," I may next allude to his ignorance 

 of the "Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication." 

 Here, at least, total ignorance of the work he names is the most chari- 

 table construction that we can put upon the following passage : 



