48 



" Natural Selection " 



was not — a great logician, and had detected the weak 

 point in the arch, which would eventually give way and 

 thus shatter the entire construction. In fact, we now 

 know that the bridge is without a cope-stone, and 

 natural selection, being non-existent, has no power 

 over the forces of nature, and is not a determining 

 factor in evolution. It is a very striking fact and 

 attention must be drawn to it here, that Darwin 

 himself must have had grave doubts as to the operation 

 of this law, because Messrs. Dewar and Finn write, on 

 page 89 of their book, of " the difficulty urged by Darwin, 

 that isolated sports must be swamped by continual 

 crossing of the normal type." If isolated sports are 

 swamped, which they must be by the continual crossing 

 of the normal type, we surely are able to demonstrate 

 that in nature Paulin's law of the survival of the 

 average through the potent influence of marriage is 

 universal. By continual crossing of the normal type, 

 all variations must be destroyed. Therefore, out of 

 Darwin's own mouth we can prove that natural 

 selection is inoperative as a natural law. But apart 

 from that Darwin would require to prove that sports 

 were double, that is, male and female. If not, how 

 otherwise could the particular sport become per- 

 manent ? This Darwin has never attempted to 

 explain. This statement proves the innate honesty of 

 the man, but there remained the difficulty of accounting 

 for the elimination of the excess of reproduction. Had 

 he only understood how this was accomplished, and 

 that the " cannibal habit of the male " was a law 

 operating in such a manner throughout nature as to 

 regulate exactly to the needs of nature the numbers 

 of all species, we should have been to-day nearer to a 

 full understanding of the laws so far as living matter 

 is concerned. 



