The Making of Species 
“ After much consideration, and with no bias 
against Mr Darwin’s views,” wrote Huxley to 
the Westminster Review in 1860, ‘it is our clear 
conviction that, as the evidence now stands, it is 
not absolutely proven that a group of animals 
having all the characters exhibited by species in 
nature, has ever been originated by selection, 
whether natural or artificial. Groups having the 
morphological nature of species, distinct and per- 
manent races, in fact, have been so produced 
over and over again; but there is no positive 
evidence at present that any group of animals 
has, by variation and selective breeding, given 
rise to another group which was in the least 
degree infertile with the first. Mr Darwin is 
perfectly aware of this weak point, and brings 
forward a multitude of ingenious and important 
arguments to diminish the force of the objection. 
We admit the value of these arguments to the 
fullest extent; nay, we will go so far as to express 
our belief that experiments, conducted by a skil- 
ful physiologist, would very probably obtain the 
desired production of mutually more or less in- 
fertile breeds from a common stock in a com- 
paratively few years; but still, as the case stands 
at present, this little ‘rift within the lute’ is not 
to be disguised or overlooked.” 
Similarly Wallace writes, at the beginning of 
chapter vii. of his Darwinism: “One of the 
greatest, or perhaps we may say the greatest, of 
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