218 SPECULATIVE SCIENCE 



the lapse of time, the difficulty of classification, and the value 

 of minor facts adduced in support of Darwin. 



Some persons seem to have thought his theory dangerous to 

 religion, morality, and what not. Others have tried to laugh it 

 out of court. We can share neither the fears of the former nor 

 the merriment of the latter ; and, on the contrary, own to feeling 

 the greatest admiration both for the ingenuity of the doctrine 

 and for the temper in which it was broached, although, from a 

 consideration of the following arguments, our opinion is adverse 

 to its truth. 



Variability. Darwin's theory requires that there shall be no 

 limit to the possible difference between descendants and their 

 progenitors, or, at least, that if there be limits they shall be at 

 so great a distance as to comprehend the utmost differences 

 between any known forms of life. The variability required, if 

 not infinite, is indefinite. Experience with domestic animals 

 and cultivated plants shows that great variability exists. Dar- 

 win calls special attention to the differences between the various 

 fancy pigeons, which, he says, are descended from one stock ; 

 between various breeds of cattle and horses, and some other 

 domestic animals. He states that these differences are greater 

 than those which induce some naturalists to class many speci- 

 mens as distinct species. These differences are infinitely small 

 as compared with the range required by his theory, but he as- 

 sumes that by accumulation of successive differences any degree 

 of variation may be produced ; he says little in proof of the 

 possibility of such an accumulation, seeming rather to take for 

 granted that if Sir John Seabright could with pigeons produce 

 in six years a certain head and beak of say half the bulk pos- 

 sessed by the original stock, then in twelve years this bulk could 

 be reduced to a quarter, in twenty-four to an eighth, and so 

 farther. Darwin probably never believed or intended to teach 

 so extravagant a proposition, yet by substituting a few myriads 

 of years for that poor period of six years, we obtain a proposition 

 fundamental in his theory. That theory rests on the assump- 

 tion that natural selection can do slowly what man's selection 

 does quickly ; it is by showing how much man can do, that 

 Darwin hopes to prove how much can be done without him. 



