186 DARWINIAN1SM. 



been, it is to be feared, absorbed. Mr. Huxley, namely, 

 was glad of anything that promised to be " a working 

 hypothesis" towards the extinction of a supernatural 

 causation by a natural one. " Natural causation " is 

 the Huxleyan category. But the " finality " of the par- 

 ticular theory is, he says, " a matter of indifference " to 

 him. In fact, he saw at first, and sees still, the " in- 

 security " of the " logical foundation " of the doctrine, so 

 long as " selective breeding " fails to produce " varieties 

 more or less infertile." He admits also that " in the 

 prodigious variety and complexity of organic nature there 

 are multitudes of phenomena which are not deducible 

 from any generalisations we have yet reached." But the 

 " dilemma " was " creation or nothing," and " the Dar- 

 winian hypothesis remains incomparably more probable 

 than the creation hypothesis." 



As one sees, this, as Darwinianism, is but loose Dar- 

 winianism. The principle of Darwinianism, indeed, 

 remains so very loose with Mr. Huxley, that, even when 

 he would lay down the actual definition of it, he writes 

 thus carelessly 



" The suggestion that new species may result from the selective 

 action of external conditions upon the variations from their specific 

 type, which individuals present and which we call ' spontaneous, 1 

 because we are ignorant of their causation that suggestion is the 

 central idea of the Origin of Species, and contains the quintessence of 

 Darwinianism." 



Mr. Darwin certainly contemplates the natural selec- 

 tion of a natural variation ; that is his " central idea," 

 the " quintessence " of what he has properly, specially, 

 and peculiarly to propose. But the variation Mr. 

 Darwin means is only the variation of individual from 

 individual, as of the colt from the sire, the filly from 

 the dam. " Variations from their specific type which 

 individuals present ! " why individuals, varying from 



