62 Professor Huxley's Darwinism. [February, 
“ If a variation which approaches the nature of a mon- 
strosity can strive thus to reproduce itself, it is not wonder- 
ful that less aberrant modifications should tend to be 
preserved even more strongly ” (“ Lay Sermons,” p. 26 7), — 
a paraphrase of Mr. Darwin’s statement that “ If strange 
and rare deviations of structure are really inherited, less 
strange and commoner deviations may be freely admitted to 
be inheritable ” (“ Origin of Species,” p. 10), although pan- 
genesis removes a rudimentary organ when much reduced 
(“ Variation under Domestication,” ii., 309, 393). 
The Ancon sheep chosen by Prof. Huxley as a typical in- 
stance of “ less aberrant modifications,” Mr. Darwin has 
taken the opportunity to remark, “ throw very little light on 
our subject ” (“ Origin of Species,” p. 201) ; they are “ semi- 
monstrous ” (“ Variation under Domestication,” i., 104) ; in 
common with hexadaCtyle men their behaviour in respeCt to 
inheritance differs from that exhibited by races formed by 
selection and by hybrids (ii., 70, 72). We have seen that 
they lack an unassailable history ; also that a mistake occurs 
in the recordal of the Kelleia case. Consequently those 
whose conversion to Darwinism was accelerated by Prof. 
Huxley’s unintentionally unsuitable interpretation may fitly 
re-examine their views. 
The Sterility Desideratum. 
We will now proceed to examine a chimera with which 
Prof. Huxley encumbered Darwinism. Persons may be re- 
ludtant to believe this unless I discuss the topic at some 
length, especially, perhaps, since Prof. Huxley once re- 
proached Dr. Mivart for “ creating a difficulty for Mr. 
Darwin out of a supposed close similarity between the eyes 
of fishes and cephalopoas, which (as Gegenbaur and others 
have clearly shown) does not exist ” (“ Critiques and Ad- 
dresses,” p. 253), — not to dwell on the faCt that Dr. Mivart 
did not “ create ” the difficulty, but borrowed it with acknow- 
ledgment on more than one occasion, including the one 
quoted by Prof. Huxley, in both editions of the “ Genesis of 
Species,” from “ Habit and Intelligence.” 
Unfortunately Prof. Huxley is not quite clear what the 
“ little rift within the lute ” really is. In i860 “ the pro- 
duction of mutually more or less infertile breeds from a 
common stock ” was the desideratum ; in 1863, in some 
ledtures to working men which the author had “no leisure 
to revise,” “ complete physiological divergence ” was de- 
manded, and if it should be proven impossible to obtain this 
