96 Species; or, Danvinism. 



and the other forms none at all, he argues about 

 both alike as being each a process of selecting, and 

 calls both " selection." Unless it be that he com- 

 mits the error of mere verbal equivocation, when 

 he uses the same term, " selection," for things so 

 entirely different, — one process of breeding being 

 but a chance result of chance combinations, the 

 other a result aimed at by man through combi- 

 nations designed to reach it. In either of these 

 alternatives, you have a sophism illustrated. Thirdly, 

 he commits the fallacy of an inverted comparison. 

 For, comparing the two kinds of breeding together, 

 he should have concluded that, as man's artificial 

 selection had not formed different species, still less 

 could the blind, mechanical operation of nature do 

 so. This is the argument of likelihood, a majori ad 

 minus: what was the more likely did not occur, 

 therefore neither could the less likely. In the face 

 of the obvious facts, he infers the opposite, that 

 perhaps blind, natural selection brought all exist- 

 ing species into being. Fourthly, having entered 

 on this path, he will proceed on it with all the 

 pomp of abounding observation and experiment 

 pleasantly described, which in the premises is but 

 another fallacy, that of misguided and misleading 

 erudition,. 



That leads to bewilder and dazzles to blind. 

 Whatever he says henceforth will have the air of 

 induction, to establish the point to be proved. He 

 will describe facts of natural history; he will por- 



