"A Puerile Hypothesis." 57 



selective breeding from a common stock are 

 fertile with one another, that link will be 

 wanting." x 



"On a general survey of the theory," says 

 Dr. Elam, 2 "nothing strikes us more forcibly 

 than the total absence of direct evidence of any 

 one of the steps. No one professes to have ever 

 seen a variety (producing fertile offspring with 

 other varieties) become a species (producing no 

 offspring, or no fertile offspring, with the origi- 

 nal stock). No one knows of any living or any 

 extinct species having given origin to any other, 

 at once or gradually. Not one instance is ad- 

 duced of any variety having ever arisen which 

 did actually give its possessor, individually, any 

 advantage in the struggle for life. Not one in- 

 stance is recorded of any given variety having 

 been actually selected for preservation,- whilst its 

 allies became extinct. There is an abundance 



1 "Man's Place in Nature," p. 107. 



2 "Automatism and Evolution." Contemporary Review, 

 vol. xxix. p. 131. [In gratefully acknowledging my in- 

 debtedness to the series of papers of which this is the 

 third (for the first and second, see Contemporary Review, 

 vol. xxviii. pp. 537 and 725), perhaps I may be per- 

 mitted to say that, by their fairness and forcefulness, 

 their clearness and conclusiveness, their breadth of range 

 and their minuteness of detail, Dr. Elam has laid a large 

 circle of readers under lasting obligations.]^ 



