74 WHAT IS DARWINISM? 



printed in his " Lay Sermons," etc., in 1870, 

 he saj^s : " There is no fault to be found with 

 Mr. Darwin's method, but it is another thing 

 whether he has fulfilled all the conditions im- 

 posed by that method. Is it satisfactorily 

 proved that species may ^ be originated by se- 

 lection ? that none of the phenomena exhib- 

 ited by species are inconsistent with the origin 

 of species in this way ? If these questions can 

 be answered in the affirmative, Mr. Darwin's 

 view steps out of the rank of hypotheses into 

 that of theories ; but so long as the evidence 

 at present adduced falls short of enforcing that 

 affirmative, so long, to our minds, the new 

 doctrine must be content to remain among 

 the former, — an extremely valuable, and in 

 the highest degree probable, doctrine ; indeed, 

 the only extant hypothesis which is worth 

 anything in a scientific point of view ; but 

 still a hypothesis, and not yet a theory of 

 species. After much consideration," he adds, 



1 It cannot escape the attention of any one that Mr. Darwin, 

 Mr. Wallace, Professor Huxley, and all the other advocates or 

 defenders of Darwinism, do not pretend to prove anything more 

 than that species may be originated by selection, not that there is 

 no other satisfactory account of their origin. Mr. Darwin admits 

 that referring them to the intention and efficiency of God, ac- 

 counts for everything, but, he says, that is not science. 



