Darwin s Answers. More Fallacies. 105 



if " rudiments," as Mr. Darwin calls them, are to be 

 claimed as a proof of natural selection and survival 

 of the fittest, we shall yet see how very little any 

 principle of utility could have operated to produce 

 such utterly useless parts as rudiments are seen to 

 be (No. 129-131). 



1 1 7. And Mr. Darwin, — how does he forearm him- 

 self against the inevitable and insoluble „ ^ . , 



° Mr. Darwin s 



difficulties which loomed up before his Manner of 

 theory even in those times, and which now Aliswerin &- 

 are made to stand out clearly around the whole ho- 

 rizon of science, thanks to the reaction against his 

 aggressive speculation? His defence is quite char- 

 acteristic. I call your closest attention to it, not 

 because it is hard to catch, or rare, but because it is 

 precious. He speaks thus in his " Variation of 

 Plants and Animals:" — " Since species do not owe 

 their mutual sterility to the accumulative action of 

 natural selection (so he granted the point before- 

 hand), and a great number of considerations show 

 us that they do not owe it to a creative act (this is 

 an argument ad odium, to excite the anti-religious 

 prejudice against another theory), we ought to admit 

 that it has been produced incidentally during their 

 gradual formation (this is begging the question 

 which he ought to- prove, petitio pr -incipii), and is 

 connected with some unknown modification of their 

 organization." (This last is such an ineptitude, 

 that, instead of dignifying it with the name of any 



