53 



REMARKS ON THE REV. G. HENSLOW'S PAPER. By Charles 

 Brooke, M.A., F.R.S., P.R.M.S., &c., Vice-President. 



The writer cannot agree with several of the statements of this paper, more 

 especially the following. At page 36 the author says : — 



" At last a being may be produced so far different from the original 

 parents that it would (if its history were unknown) be classed by a naturalist 

 as a different genus altogether. This, it will be remembered, has actually 

 been done in the case of pigeons." 



It is probable that no naturalist would ever think of classifying any 

 modified pigeon as a separate genus, and the writer is not aware that any one 

 has so classified it. A naturalist might make it a separate species for the 

 sake of giving his name to it ; but we aU know that the groundless 

 multiplication of species has been the bane of natural history. All such 

 modifications are properly described as varieties, but not as new species; 

 h fortiori, not as new genera. 



At page 36, line 2 from bottom, the author says : — 



" Some opponents of his [Darw^in's] views have maintained that the power 

 of variation is limited ; if so, the onus prohandi rests with them, and no 

 proof has ever yet been given. Whereas the possibility of the other view 

 has been proved, and the probability of its truth elsewhere derived amounts 

 to a moral conviction." 



If so, it must be admitted that "moral convictions" may rest on very 

 slender bases. As regards the statement that "no proof has ever been 

 given," it must be remarked that there is no known instance of a cross-breed 

 between animals of different genera ; and between different species of the 

 same genus, the offspring is invariably infertile ; for example, the mule. 

 It thus appears that hybrid animals are not capable of reproducing their 

 own mixed characteristics. This may be assumed to be a provision specially 

 ordained to maintain the uniformity of spiecies, and as such, an argument 

 against indefinite variation. 



Again, at page 37, the author says : — 



" Now admit the fact of indefinite variation in offspring, &c. 



It is necessary to join issue here; for indefinite variation of offspring ia 

 not a fact, but an hypothesis, on the validity of which the whole question 

 rests. 



Three lines further on Mr. Darwin is quoted as saying : — 



" The birth of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that 

 grand sequence of events which our minds refuse to accept as the result of 

 blind chance." 



But a full and free admission of the truth of this remark does not involve 

 a belief in the doctrine of natural selection. 



