STERILITY OP HYBRIDS. 419 



viduals of the several varieties of a species, disprove 

 Darwin's theory. 



If the reader will reflect on the steps by which less- 

 ened fertility and sterility, among individuals of the 

 same species, are acquired, he will appreciate the 

 blunder which Darwin made, when he sought to obvi- 

 ate the objection of the sterility of hybrids, by assert- 

 ing that such sterility might have been slowly ac- 

 quired. Darwin says, that divergence of character, in 

 varieties, leads to the evolution of distinct species. He 

 then shows, that the further such divergence of character 

 is carried, the nearer do the individuals of each such 

 divergent variety, approach complete sterility and death I 

 and that the only way that this sterility and extinction 

 may be staved off, is by the individuals of such variety, 

 crossing with individuals of another of the varieties of 

 that species, — which process undoes the very diver- 

 gence OF CHARACTER, UPON WHICH DARWIN DEPENDS 

 TO SHOW THE EVOLUTION OF THE VARIETIES INTO DIS- 

 TINCT SPECIES ! 



As divergence of character is occasioned by the exclu- 

 sive possession, by each variety, of some positive pecu- 

 liarity which (being a peculiarity) needs must, therefore, 

 be absent in all of the other varieties of the same spe- 

 cies; and, conversely, is occasioned by the absence, in 

 each variety, of all the positive peculiarities of the other 

 varieties; evil effects result from close-interbreeding. 

 As these evil effects become intensified, degree for de- 

 gree, with the divergence of such varieties, it is clear, 

 that distinct species cannot be evolved from such varie- 

 ties, for those varieties are fast verging on death and 



