90 DARWimANA. 



sliglit, over the rest, are in the long-run sure to sur- 

 vive, to propagate, and to occupy the limited field, to 

 the exclusion or destruction of the weaker brethren. 

 All this we pondered, and could not much object to. 

 In fact, we began to contract a liking for a system 

 which at the outset illustrates the advantages of good 

 breeding, and which makes the most " of every creat- 

 ure's best." 



Could we " let by-gones be by-gones," and, begin- 

 ning now, go on improving and diversifying for the 

 future by natural selection, could we even take up the 

 theory at the introduction of the actually existing 

 species, we should be well content ; and so, perhaps, 

 would most naturalists be. It is by no means difficult 

 to believe that varieties are incipient or possible spe- 

 cies, when we see what trouble naturalists, especially 

 botanists, have to distinguish between them — one re- 

 garding as a true species what another regards as a 

 variety ; when the progress of knowledge continually 

 increases, rather than diminishes, the number of 

 doubtful instances ; and when there is less agreement 

 than ever among naturalists as to what, is the basis in 

 ^Nature upon which our idea of species reposes, or how 

 the word is to be defined. Indeed, when we consider 

 the endless disputes of naturalists and ethnologists 

 over the human races, as to whether they belong to 

 one species or to more, and, if to more, whether to 

 three, or five, or fifty, we can hardly help fancying 

 that both may be right — or rather, that the uni-humani- 

 tarians would have been right many thousand years 

 ago, and the multi-humanitarians will be several thou- 

 sand years later ; while at present the safe thing to 



