THE DARWINIAN HYPOTHESIS 127 



plants, have been produced by one method. The breeder 

 and a skilful one must be a person of much sagacity 

 and natural or acquired perceptive faculty notes some 

 slight difference, arising he knows not how, in some 

 individuals of his stock. If he wish to perpetuate the 

 difference, to form a breed with the peculiarity in question 

 strongly marked, he selects such male and female indi- 

 viduals as exhibit the desired character, and breeds from 

 them. Their offspring are then carefully examined, and 

 those which exhibit the peculiarity the most distinctly are 

 selected for breeding, and this operation is repeated until 

 the desired amount of divergence from the primitive 

 stock is reached. It is then found that by continuing 

 the process of selection always breeding, that is, from 

 well-marked forms, and allowing no impure crosses to 

 interfere, a race may be formed, the tendency of which 

 to reproduce itself is exceedingly strong ; nor is the limit 

 to the amount of divergence which may be thus produced 

 known, but one thing is certain, that, if certain breeds 

 of dogs, or of pigeons, or of horses, were known only in 

 a fossil state, no naturalist would hesitate in regarding 

 them as distinct species. 



But, in all these cases we have human interference. 

 Without the breeder there would be no selection, and 

 without the selection no race. Before admitting the 

 possibility of natural species having originated in any 

 similar way, it must be proved that there is in nature 

 some power which takes the place of man, and performs 

 a selection sud sponte. It is the claim of Mr. Darwin 

 that he professes to have discovered the existence and 

 the modus opcrandi of this natural selection, as he terms 

 it ; and, if he be right, the process is perfectly simple 

 and comprehensible, and irresistibly deducible from very 

 familiar but well nigh forgotten facts. 



Who, for instance, has duly reflected upon all the con- 

 sequences of the marvellous struggle for existence which 

 is daily and hourly going on among living beings ? Not 

 only does every animal live at the expense of some other 

 animal or plant, but the very plants are at war. The 

 ground is full of seeds that cannot rise into seedlings ; 

 the seedlings rob one another of air and light and w r ater, 

 the strongest robber winning the day, and extinguishing 

 his competitors. Year after year, the wild animals with 

 which man never interferes are, on the average, neither 



