56 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



no real acquaintance with the writings of men Hke Cope, 

 who with masterly abiHty set forth the claims of those who 

 believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics as 

 likewise a considerable factor; it is only in France, where 

 the outlook is broader, that Cope's eminence is recognized. 

 In America and England natural selection as a complete or 

 nearly complete explanation of evolution is still on the 

 whole the fashionable scientific doctrine. Yet even in 

 America and England there is now a wide-spread and con- 

 stantly growing belief that, although natural selection un- 

 doubtedly plays a great part in the survival or extinction 

 of species, it only plays a minor part in the creation of 

 species, and that none of the explanations hitherto ad- 

 vanced of the creation of species is by itself sufficient to 

 explain, and indeed that all of them together are not suffi- 

 cient to explain, the major part of the phenomena. 



By far the most satisfactory recent book on the subject 

 is "The Making of Species," by Dewar and Finn. The au- 

 thors keep ever in mind Huxley's statement that "Science 

 commits suicide when it adopts a creed." In other words, 

 they try not to pin their faith to dogmas and, above all, not 

 to accept one explanation as true merely because they have 

 no other to offer. Doubtless the greatest service to science 

 is rendered by the man who can give the right explanation 

 of phenomena. But the most serious injury is done by 

 the man who persuades people to adopt the wrong explana- 

 tion. In our present state of knowledge it is a prime 

 necessity that we shall be continually saying: "I do not 

 know." As yet we know almost nothing as to how species 

 originate. The theories of closet specialists help us very 

 little. Experiments carried on under wholly artificial con- 



