$2 'WHAT IS A SPECIES?' 



inevitable, even if long-postponed, consequence of its 

 cessation, it is obvious that Huxley's difficulty is solved, 

 Avhile his suggested experimental creation of sterility by 

 selection would not reproduce an\- natural operation : 

 it would afford a picture of a natural result but would be 

 produced in an unnatural way. This criticism of Huxley's 

 contention ^\as advanced by the present writer three 

 years ago,^ the final conclusion being stated in the para- 

 graph printed below : — 



' If. then, we cannot as )et reproduce by artificial 

 selection all the characteristics of natural species-forma- 

 tion, but can only imitate natural race-formation, we can, 

 nevertheless, appreciate the reasons for this want of 

 success, and are no more compelled to relinquish our full 

 confidence in natural selection than we are compelled to 

 adopt a guarded attitude towards evolution because our 

 historical records are not long enough to register the 

 change of one species into another.' ^ 



It was, therefore, with intense interest and pleasure 

 that I read the following sentences in a letter written 

 b\' Darwin to Huxle)', December 28, [1862] — sentences 

 which show that criticism practically identical had been 

 made by the illustrious naturalist nearly forty years 

 earlier. 



* We differ so much that it is no use arguing. To get 

 the degree of sterility you expect in recently formed 

 varieties seems to me simply hopeless. It seems to me 

 almost like those naturalists who declare they will never 

 believe that one species turns into another till they see 

 every stage in process.' ^ 



After reading, in the first volume of Jl/orc Letters, the 

 often-repeated refutation of Huxle)'s objection so clearly 

 and strongly expressed in letters received by the objector 

 himself, it is surprising that no effect was produced, and 

 that reference should have been nearly always made 

 to this supposed fiaw in the theory of Natural Selection, 

 whenever the great comparative anatomist had occasion 



' Thf Quarterly Rcvuil, No. 385, January, 1901, pp. 368-71. 



* loc. cit. p. 371. 



^ More Letters^ vol. i, jx 225, LeUer 154. 



