66 EvohUiori and its Consequences, 



aided by the subordinate action of natural selection,' — when 

 he himself in his Lay Sermons (p. 321) has enunciated 

 simply that Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is the origin of species 

 'by the process of natural selection/ without one word of 

 qualification ; and five pages further on, has considered the 

 possibility of the refutation of Mr. Darwin's view by the 

 discovery of residual phenomena ^ not explicable by ' natural 

 selection' — -just such phenomena as I have endeavoured to 

 call attention to in my book. 



I question whether Mr. Darwin even now does admit that 

 * natural selection ' has only a subordinate action. I do not 

 recollect to have met with such a declaration, although I 

 think that it should logically follow from the various 

 admissions he has latterly made. If he does admit it, then a 

 cause which is subordinate cannot be the determining agent. 

 If he does not admit it, then there is a radical difference 

 between my hypothesis and Mr. Darwin's. 



Pr(3fessor Huxley blames the Quarterly Keviewer's treat- 

 ment of Mr. Darwin as ' unjust and unbecoming,' because he 

 endeavours to show how Mr. Darwin has changed his ground 

 without (in spite of his generally scrupulous candour) 

 disavowing ' natural selection ' as the origin of species. 



I confess that it seems to me that the reviewer was fully 

 justified in so doing ; for Mr. Darwin's reputation as a man of 

 science stands so high, that it was plainly the reviewer's duty 

 to endeavour to prevent the public attaching, in mere defer- 

 ence to Mr. Darwin's authority, a greater weight to his 

 assertions than the evidence adduced warranted. The 

 reviewer sought to do this by showing, by Mr. Darwin's own 

 words, he had been compelled to admit that ' abrupt strongly 

 marked changes ' may occur ' neither beneficial nor injurious ' 

 to the creatures possessing them, produced 'by unknown 



1 His words are — * What if species should offer residual phenomena, here 

 and there, not explicable by natural selection ? ' — Lay Sermons, p. 326. 



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