82 SPECIES KOT 



To prove tbis Mr. Darwin falls back upon 

 domestic productions obviously tbe very worst 

 tbat he could cboose, inasmuch as the variations 

 of domesticity have no analogy whatever with 

 the variations of nature. He tells us that one 

 pigeon-fancier will breed all his stock from 

 short-necks, and another from long-necks; and 

 that a breeder of horses will, by always choosing 

 swift horses to cross with, establish a swift 

 race, as distinguished from the original slow 

 one. It is almost absurd to reason in this 

 way as a means of proving that species may be 

 transmuted. I will venture to say, that where 

 you have one variation in nature of a progres- 

 sive character, you have a thousand that are 

 retrogressive, and I can "easily imagine," as 

 Mr. Darwin so frequently remarks, how various 

 causes may conspire to degrade the original 

 typical animal form, but I cannot imagine, from 

 anything Mr. Darwin has written, a law of 

 variation acting either constantly or intermittingly, 

 either partially or universally, and producing 

 changes in organic structure which lead to the 

 transmutation of species. 



I challenge Mr. Darwin, or any of his sup- 

 porters, to give me one single proof from the 

 animal world, where such a thing can either be 

 proved or safely inferred. I believe the char- 

 acters used by botanists to define species are 

 often very unsatisfactory. But even among 

 plants I think that no well-authenticated in- 

 stance of transmutation can be proved, including 



