60 Scientific Sophisms. 



fied. They are at best " a mere figment of the 

 intellect." And their rejection involves the re- 

 jection of his "whole theory." 



Jt is therefore no matter for surprise that a 

 competent authority like Mr. St. George Mivart 

 should conclude his exhaustive examination 

 with these weighty words : 



"With regard to the conception as now put 

 forward 'by Mr. Darwin, I cannot truly charac- 

 terize it but by an epithet which I employ only 

 with much reluctance. I weigh my words, and 

 have present to my mind the many distin- 

 guished naturalists who have accepted the 

 notion, and yet I cannot hesitate to call it a 

 'puerile hypothesis' " * * . 



Mr. Mivart's judgments need no endorsement 

 here ; but those who are most conversant with 

 the highly cultivated critical faculty, the pro- 

 found knowledge of natural history and of 

 biological science which in his " Genesis of 

 Species," and afterwards, in his " Lessons from 

 Nature," he has brought to the refutation of 

 Mr. Darwin's .doctrine of Natural Selection, 

 will be the first to adopt and to reiterate this, 



1 " Lessons from Nature, as manifested in Mind and 

 Matter." By St. George Mivart, Ph.D., F.R.S., etc. 

 London: Murray, 1876. Chap. ix. p. 300. (* This em- 

 phasis of italics is Mr. Mivart's.) 



