374 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



The three objections to which I allude are, (i) that 

 a large proportional number of specific, as well as 

 of higher taxonomic characters, are seemingly useless 

 characters, and therefore do not lend themselves to 

 explanation by the Darwinian theory ; (2) that the 

 most general of all specific characters viz. cross - 

 infertility between allied species cannot possibly 

 be due to natural selection, as is demonstrated by 

 Darwin himself; (3) that the swamping effects of 

 free intercrossing must always render impossible by 

 natural selection alone any evolution of species in 

 divergent (as distinguished from serial) lines of 

 change. 



These three objections have been urged from time 

 to time by not a few of the most eminent botanists 

 and zoologists of our century ; and from one point 

 of view I cannot myself have the smallest doubt that 

 the objections thus advanced are not only valid in 

 themselves, but also by far the most formidable 

 objections which the theory of natural selection has 

 encountered. From another point of view, however, 

 I am equally convinced that they all admit of ab- 

 solute annihilation. This strong antithesis arises, as 

 I have said, from differences of standpoint, or from 

 differences in the view which we take of the theory of 

 natural selection itself. If we understand this theory 

 to set forth natural selection as the sole cause of 

 organic evolution, then all the above objections to the 

 theory are not merely, as already stated, valid and 

 formidable, but as I will now add, logically insur- 

 mountable. On the other hand, if we take theory 

 to consist merely in setting forth natural selection as 

 a factor of organic evolution, even although we be- 



