The Nuptial Flight 
This idea is always astounding; and 
the further we penetrate into it, the fewer 
do our certitudes become. Darwin, for 
instance, to take the man of all men 
who studied it the most methodically 
and most passionately, Darwin, though 
scarcely confessing it to himself, loses 
confidence at every step, and retreats be- 
fore the unexpected and the irreconcilable. 
Would you have before you the nobly 
humiliating spectacle of human genius 
battling with infinite power, you have but 
to follow Darwin’s endeavours to unravel 
the strange, incoherent, inconceivably 
mysterious laws of the sterility and 
fecundity of hybrids, or of the varia- 
tions of specific and generic characters. 
Scarcely has he formulated a principle 
when numberless exceptions assail him; 
and this very principle, soon completely 
overwhelmed, is glad to find refuge in 
some corner, and preserve a shred of 
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