WHAT IS DARWINISM? 75 



" and assuredly with no bias against Mr. Dar- 

 win's views, it is our clear conviction that, as 

 the evidence now stands, it is not absolutely 

 proven that a group of animals, having all the 

 characters exhibited by species in Nature, has 

 ever been originated by selection, whether 

 artificial or natural." ^ 



Again, in his work on " Man's Place in Na- 

 ture," he expresses himself much to the same 

 effect : " A true physical cause is admitted to 

 be such only on one condition, that it shall ac- 

 count for all the phenomena which come within 

 the range of its operation. If it is inconsist- 

 ent with any one phenomenon it must be re- 

 jected ; if it fails to explain any one phenome- 

 non it is so far to be suspected, though it may 

 have a perfect right to provisional acceptance. 

 .... Our acceptance, therefore, of the Dar- 

 winian hypothesis must be provisional so long 

 as one link in the chain of evidence is want- 

 ing ; and so long as all the animals and 

 plants certainly produced by selective breed- 

 ing from a common stock are fertile, and their 

 progeny are fertile one with another, that 

 link will be wanting. For so long selective 



1 Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews. By Thomas Henry 

 Huxley, LL. D., F. R. S. London, 1870, p. 323. 



