The Darwinian Hypothesis | Page 8

prompted this article. Its
author, Mr. Darwin, inheritor of a once celebrated name, won his spurs
in science when most of those now distinguished were young men, and
has for the last 20 years held a place in the front ranks of British
philosophers. After a circumnavigatory voyage, undertaken solely for
the love of his science, Mr. Darwin published a series of researches
which at once arrested the attention of naturalists and geologists; his
generalizations have since received ample confirmation, and now
command universal assent, nor is it questionable that they have had the
most important influence on the progress of science. More recently Mr.
Darwin, with a versatility which is among the rarest of gifts, turned his
attention to a most difficult question of zoology and minute anatomy;
and no living naturalist and anatomist has published a better
monograph than that which resulted from his labours. Such a man, at
all events, has not entered the sanctuary with unwashed hands, and
when he lays before us the results of 20 years' investigation and
reflection we must listen even though we be disposed to strike. But, in
reading his work it must be confessed that the attention which might at
first be dutifully, soon becomes willingly, given, so clear is the author's
thought, so outspoken his conviction, so honest and fair the candid
expression of his doubts. Those who would judge the book must read it;
we shall endeavour only to make its line of argument and its
philosophical position intelligible to the general reader in our own way.
The Baker-street Bazaar has just been exhibiting its familiar annual
spectacle. Straight-backed, small-headed, big-barrelled oxen, as
dissimilar from any wild species as can well be imagined, contended

for attention and praise with sheep of half-a-dozen different breeds and
styes of bloated preposterous pigs, no more like a wild boar or sow than
a city alderman is like an ourang-outang. The cattle show has been, and
perhaps may again be, succeeded by a poultry show, of whose crowing
and clucking prodigies it can only be certainly predicated that they will
be very unlike the aboriginal 'Phasianus gallus'. If the seeker after
animal anomalies is not satisfied, a turn or two in Seven Dials will
convince him that the breeds of pigeons are quite as extraordinary and
unlike one another and their parent stock, while the Horticultural
Society will provide him with any number of corresponding vegetable
aberrations from nature's types. He will learn with no little surprise, too,
in the course of his travels, that the proprietors and producers of these
animal and vegetable anomalies regard them as distinct species, with a
firm belief, the strength of which is exactly proportioned to their
ignorance of scientific biology, and which is the more remarkable as
they are all proud of their skill in 'originating' such "species."
On careful inquiry it is found that all these, and the many other
artificial breeds or races of animals and plants, have been produced by
one method. The breeder--and a skilful one must be a person of much
sagacity and natural or acquired perceptive faculty--notes some slight
difference, arising he knows not how, in some individuals of his stock.
If he wish to perpetuate the difference, to form a breed with the
peculiarity in question strongly marked, he selects such male and
female individuals as exhibit the desired character, and breeds from
them. Their offspring are then carefully examined, and those which
exhibit the peculiarity the most distinctly are selected for breeding, and
this operation is repeated until the desired amount of divergence from
the primitive stock is reached. It is then found that by continuing the
process of selection--always breeding, that is, from well-marked forms,
and allowing no impure crosses to interfere,--a race may be formed, the
tendency of which to reproduce itself is exceedingly strong; nor is the
limit to the amount of divergence which may be thus produced known,
but one thing is certain, that, if certain breeds of dogs, or of pigeons, or
of horses, were known only in a fossil state, no naturalist would
hesitate in regarding them as distinct species.
But, in all these cases we have 'human interference'. Without the
breeder there would be no selection, and without the selection no race.

Before admitting the possibility of natural species having originated in
any similar way, it must be proved that there is in nature some power
which takes the place of man, and performs a selection 'sua sponte'. It is
the claim of Mr. Darwin that he professes to have discovered the
existence and the 'modus operandi' of this natural selection, as he terms
it; and, if he be right, the process is perfectly simple and
comprehensible, and irresistibly deducible from very familiar but well
nigh forgotten facts.
Who, for instance, has