Mr. E. V. Ncale on Typical Selection. 337 



peculiar aptness and disposition for interbreeding, this variety would 

 be withdrawn from the circle of varieties by who^e mutual action the 

 original type was preserved. Consequently the type would itself 

 have a tendency to alter ; and if several varieties were thus withdrawn 

 from any type* it would seem tliat this type must change into some 

 modification of itself, and take its ])lace amid the circle of variously 

 related types evolved out of its original unity. The process would 

 be analogous to what appears to have happened in some cases, where, 

 through local circumstances or human interference, many distinct 

 varieties of the same plant or animal have been formed, as in the case 

 of wheat, of horses, of dogs, and of man himself; and the result 

 seems to accord with many ascertained facts in the relations of plants 

 and animals, living and extinct. 



If in the course of these observations I have been occupied in 

 criticising rather than in defending Mr. Darwin's views, the object of 

 this criticism has been to separate what I regard as a most valuable 

 scientific conception, from association with a theory which, though 

 liighly ingenious, is entirely hypothetical,' and, in my judgment, 

 untenable. 



That there is a principle of variation at work around us in the 

 living world, animal and vegetable, is certain. That by adding up 

 successive changes effected by this principle, we can bring about a 

 large sum of total change, is ascertained. The idea that the variety 

 of living beings to be observed on the earth has arisen from the long- 

 continued operation of this ascertained principle of variation during 

 the countless ages when, as we learn from geology, a vast succession 

 of creatures gradually tending to similarity with those existing now, 

 have followed each other as its occupants — creation, to use the 

 forcible language of Professor Owen, ever compensating for extinction 

 — is an idea full of the promise of scientific results, because it seeks 

 to explain the unknown by the known or knowablc, and to sub- 

 stitute thought interpreting experiment, in place of thought dealing 

 only with itself. This true scientific character forms the distinction 

 between Mr. Darwin's fundamental hypothesis and the theories of 

 those who like Lamarck, or the author of the 'Vestiges of Creation,' 

 have previously attempted to embrace under one comprehensive 

 thought the riches of the organic world. They presented only con- 

 jectures incapable of being tested ; he has offered a conception re- 

 specting the past, which may be tested by the study of the present. 

 But this observation ajiplies only to the conception that specific 

 differences arise from selection. In referring the method of selection 

 to the " struggle for existence," Mr. Darwin leaves the solid ground 

 of experiment for the airj"^ regions of ingenious hypothesis. The 

 " struggle for existence " is perpetually going on around us ; yet 

 Mr. Darwin has not adduced a single case of even an approach to 

 the formation of a new species as its ascertained result. All his 

 instances of the effects produced by the addition of minute changes, • 

 in animal or vegetable organisms, are instances where the principle of 

 variety is modified in its operation by the principle of intelligent 

 choice. That the last principle has been concerned in producing the 



