ancestors. On the contrary, Mr. Danvin's own supposition is, that the process of developing two
entirely distinct Species out of a third is necessarily so gradual and protracted as to require a quasi
eternity for its completion, so that only a small portion of it could have been accomplished during the
limited period of man's existence upon the earth.
In the absence of any direct proof, then, it remains to be inquired if there are sufficient grounds of
probability, reasoning from analogy and the principles of inductive logic, for believing that all
Species of animals and plants map have originated from three or four progenitors. In speaking of
the amount and frequency of Individual Variation, Mr. Darwin and his followers abuse the word
tendency. After heaping up as many isolated examples of it as they can gather, they assert the
legitimate inference from such cases to be, that the Species tends to vary, leaving out of view the
fact that a vastly larger number of individuals of the same Species do not vary, but conform to the
general type. And though only one out of a hundred of these Individual Variations is transmitted by
inheritance, yet, after collecting as many instances of such transmission as they can find, they affirm
that a Variation tends to become hereditable. But it is not so. Tendency is rightly inferred only from
the majority of cases; a small minority of favorable instances merely shows the tendency to be the
other way. Thus, the cars do not tend to run off the track, although one train out of a thousand may
be unlucky enough to do so; but the general law is, that they remain on the track. Otherwise, people
would not risk their lives in them.... The advocates of the Development Theory violate the first
principles of inductive logic, by founding their induction not, as they should do, on the majority -- the
great majority -- of cases, but on the exceptions, the accidents. Their whole proceeding is an
attempt to establish a philosophy of nature, or a theory of creation, on anomalies, -- on rare
accidents, -- on lusus naturae.
This single objection is fatal to Mr. Darwin's theory, which depends on the accumulation, one upon
another, of many successive instances of departure from the primitive type. For if even Individual
Variation appears only in one case out of a hundred, -- and all naturalists will admit this proportion to
be as large as the facts will warrant, -- and if, out of the cases in which it does appear, not more
than one in a hundred is perpetuated by inheritance, then should a second Variation happen, what
chance has it of leaping upon the back of one of the former class: The chance is one out of 100 X
100 X 100 = 1,000,000. And the chance of a third Variation being added to a second, which in turn
has been cumulated upon a first, will be one out of 100 raised to the fourth power, or 100,000,000. It
is not necessary to carry the computation any further, especially as Mr. Darwin states that the
process of development can be carried out "only by the preservation and accumulation of
infinitesimally small inherited modifications." Of course, the interval between two Species so distinct
that they will, not interbreed could be bridged over only by a vast number of modifications thus
minute; and on this calculation of the chances, the time required for the development of one of these
Species out of the other would lack no characteristic of eternity except its name. But the theory
requires us to believe that this process has been repeated an indefinite number of times, so as to
account for the development of all the Species now in being, and of all which have become extinct,
out of four or five primeval forms. If the indications from analogy, on which the whole speculation is
based, are so faint that the work cannot have been completed except in an infinite lapse of years,
these indications practically amount to nothing. The evidence which needs to be multiplied by
infinity before it will produce conviction, is no evidence at all.
4. What is here called the "Struggle for Life" is only another name for the familiar fact, that every
Species of animal and vegetable life has its own Conditions of Existence, on which its continuance
and its relative numbers depend. Remove any one of these Conditions, and the whole Species must
perish; abridge any of them, and the number of individuals in the Species must be lessened. The
intrusion of a new race which is more prolific, more powerful, more hardy, or in any way better
adapted to the locality, may gradually crowd out some of its predecessors, or restrict them within
comparatively narrow bounds. Thus the introduction of the Norway rat has banished the former
familiar plague of our households and barns from many of its old haunts, and probably reduced the
whole number in this Species to a mere fraction of what it once was. Civilized man also has
successfully waged war against many ferocious or noxious animals, and probably exterminated