Darwinism 2 3 



and from which their derivation has been of very 

 recent date. Individuals belonging to different breeds, 

 such as the Tumbler, the Runt, the Carrier, the Bart, 

 the Pouter, the Turbit, the Jacobin, the Trumpeter, 

 the Laugher, and the Fantail, come into the world 

 devoid of their proper characters as such, and differing 

 in no respect from the wild wood-pigeon, their common 

 ancestor. There is nothing so evanescent as these 

 individual variations ; in a state of nature they are 

 immediately destroyed by the potent influence of 

 marriage. Let us take another instance : man has by 

 careful selection been able to produce on the one hand 

 the race-horse, on the other, the heavy and powerful 

 draught-horse. If the process of selection is not most 

 carefully guarded in either variety, their particular 

 characteristics disappear very rapidly and nature at 

 once brings back the average type. The same is true 

 of the various classes into which man is artificially 

 divided. Mr. Galton has pointed this out in regard to 

 the heredity of genius. Remarkable sons succeed 

 remarkable parents, and nephews of the first dis- 

 tinguished man display as great, if not greater 

 talents than himself. But of many cases adduced, in 

 none is the inheritance carried beyond the fourth 

 generation, and he also points out that the highest 

 display of genius is found in the first or second genera- 

 tion, after which decadence sets in. 



Again, Darwin founded his theory largely upon the 

 geological record, but out of his own mouth we think 

 this particular argument may be confuted. He 

 especially insists upon the minuteness of the develop- 

 mental accretion which occurs when each new variety 

 is produced, and upon the great number of these 

 necessary to the formation of a new species and upon 

 the long lapse of time required for each infinitesimal 

 change or variation. The same process is gone through 



