78 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



However, be this as it may, there cannot be any ' 

 question touching the immense value of his facts and 

 arguments as evidence in favour of physiological 

 selection albeit this evidence was given uncon- 

 sciously, or, as it were, prophetically. Therefore 

 I will here quote a few examples of both, from his 

 paper Du Dfoeloppement des Espkes Societies \ 



After stating the theory of natural selection, he 

 says that if the theory is (of itself) a true explanation 

 of the origin (or divergence) of specific forms, it 

 ought to follow that 



two closely allied forms, derived the one from the other, 

 would necessarily occupy two different geographical areas [or 

 topographical stations], since otherwise they would soon become 

 blended. Until they had already become sufficiently consolidated 

 as distinct species to render mutual intercrossing highly impro- 

 bable, they could not be intermingled without disadvantage 

 [to differentiation]. Had Darwin endeavoured to support his 

 hypothesis by facts, he would, at least in the vegetable kingdom, 

 have found little to favour his cause. I can cite many hundreds 

 of cases, in which species in every stage of development have 

 been found closely mingling with one another, and not in any 

 way isolated. Therefore, I do not think that one can rightly 

 speak of natural selection in the Darwinian sense in the 

 vegetable kingdom ; and, in my estimation, there is a great 

 difference between the formation of species by nature and the 

 production of stock by a breeder. . . . (p. 212). 



Of the two kinds of distribution (i. e. growing apart and 

 growing together), Synoicy (or growing together; is by far 

 the most usual in nature. 1 reckon that out of a hundred 

 allied vegetable forms, at least ninety-five would be found to be 

 synoical (p. 219). 



This is a most important point. That so enormous 



1 Archives des Sciences pJiysiquesetnaturelles (Geneve), vol. liii. (1875), 

 pp. 211-236. 



