io6 Species; or, Darwinism. 



sophism in logic, we may prefer the term of Mr. St. 

 George Mivart's, and call it " a puerility.") 



11 8. Elsewhere, not knowing how to deal with 

 the fact that mongrels or cross-breeds between 

 races are always fertile, while species remain so 

 sterile, a fact of observation as big as the world, an 

 argument of complete induction which we have 

 ascertained, and we know, Mr. Darwin placidly 

 remarks: " We do not know whether the mongrels 

 of wild races may not be sterile." 



119. Posito absurdo, sequitur quodlibet, said the old 

 axiom: " Admit an absurdity once, and anything 

 will follow." Make one absurd supposition, and 

 there is no freak of logic which is too much for you, 

 no figure or curve of fancy which you cannot exe- 

 cute. Put up one hypothesis which will not stand, 

 and, as in other questionable avocations, your 

 genius and the best of memories will be taxed for 

 twenty others more and more deftly contrived to 

 keep the first one up, some way or other. 



120. " Unknown!" and therefore we must grant 

 it! Or, as he says of the missing links in the chain 

 of beings which geology should yield up, but does 

 not, " They may now be in a metamorphosed con- 

 dition, or buried in the ocean." It is like Profes- 

 sor Haeckel's assurance when, in the gravest of ar- 

 guments, as that of biogenesis, he requires such and 

 such admissions to be made " for the most weighty 

 general reasons;" or that the existence of some un- 

 known animal, the sozoura, must be granted, since 



