' VARIATIONS, DUE TO REVERSION. 99 



new character, feature, organ, or instinct — nay, one 

 single cell — has been added to the general organic 

 fund, for "millions of generations" past. His facts 

 demonstrate, that every apparent accession of such, 

 has been the mere regain of what was previously lost, 

 by the varying species, at some near, or remote, period 

 in the past. 



Darwin, in combating the view of his adversaries, 

 that the existing state of nature is the same state in 

 which each species was originally created, has pursued 

 a suicidal course; for, in revealing the degeneration 

 which has occurred under the state of nature, and in 

 displaying the extent and scope of reversion under 

 domestication, he has swept the ground from under 

 his feet, by furnishing an explanation of the initial 

 developments (variations), with which his argument 

 starts; and thereby puts an imperative veto on that 

 liberty to extend such developments indefinitely, which 

 the improvements under domestication, at first seem- 

 ingly gave him. What led to Darwin's giving such 

 a suicidal exposition of Reversion, is this: Notwith- 

 standing that there was, to his theory that the species 

 evolve one from another, the insuperable objection, 

 that the species are effectually divided from each 

 other by the sterility of hybrids, he fancied that he 

 had so far sustained his theory, by the view of an 

 indefinite accumulation of variations, that he might 

 corroborate it by a collateral hypothesis. He fancied 

 that, if he showed that a vast number of characters 

 had been lost, then when different species within the 

 same family, developed each a similar long-lost charac- 



