8 MR. E. VANSITTART NEALE [Jan. 8, 



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 

 highly 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 knowable, 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 applies only to the conception that sjiecific 

 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 airy 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 

 changes observed in nature, we cannot, indeed, show directly ; but 

 when we learn experimentally that, by this means, something very 

 like natural species can be produced, surely it is more accordant with 

 the sobriety of science to assume that by this means also natural 

 species have been produced, than to refer their production to another 

 principle, which cannot be shown to be in operation at all, and of 

 which, if it is in operation, we cannot show how it could bring about 

 the effects attributed to it. 



I have said " something very like natural species ; " for, as has been 

 observed above, man cannot confer upon his varieties the sclf-})re- 

 serving power characteristic of true species. But this is only accordant 



