104 Species; or, Darwinism. 



original form, and so forth, bringing about the actual 

 sterility in some way or other — all this is such an 

 assumption for you to make, that, if you must make 

 it to meet the difficulties, you only increase the dif- 

 ficulties by doing so; and the whole theory becomes 

 as desperate as the assumption, for which " even the 

 chapter of accidents has no room." 



115. Thirdly, utility, or the consideration of fit- 



ness, is the great mainstay of the natural 



3. Utilities. - . _° , / 1 • i r 



selection theory, and of the survival of 

 the fittest. But pray tell us, what utilities are to be 

 found in the differences between many of the 

 species? Is there any utility about them? They 

 show on the surface of things only small and trivial 

 differences of form and color, and meaningless de- 

 tails of structure. If natural selection proceeds by 

 the survival of the fittest, there is very little fitness, 

 and still less of the fittest, apparent in such distinc- 

 tions. You suggest that, after all, these distinctions 

 may be of a disguised utility. But that is to reason 

 round and round in a circle — the circulus vitiosus of 

 logic. These species survive because they are the 

 fittest. And why are they the fittest? We do not 

 know, except that otherwise they would not survive! 

 " It is certainly too large a demand on our faith in 

 natural selection to appeal to the argument from 

 ignorance, when the facts require the appeal to be 

 made over so large a proportion of instances." So 

 far Dr. Romanes. 



116. To these words we have only to add, that 



