ly confounding deficiency of proof on one side with
sufficiency of proof on the other, but overlooking an amount of proof
that on any other subject would, provisionally at least, be deemed
conclusive, and perversely rejecting an hypothesis which, whether
correct, or not, is at least a good working hypothesis, coinciding
exactly with most of the facts, and inconsistent with none of them, in
favour of an hypothesis which, even in the hands of a Huxley or a
Darwin, cannot be made to work at all.

II.

To my mind there is a genuine pleasure in giving expression to
admiration of any great intellectual achievement; and it is much rather
for that reason than on account of any value which I imagine my opinion
on such a subject can possess, that, having had occasion to name the
illustrious author of the 'Origin of Species,' I desire to preface my
criticism on what appears to me to be a grave defect in his theory, by
intimating my hearty concurrence in its leading principles. That
inasmuch as, owing to the exceeding fecundity of the generality of
organic beings, more individuals of almost every species are born than
can possibly survive, and that consequently a desperate struggle for
existence must take place amongst them; that in such a struggle the
smallest grain may turn the scale, the minutest advantage possessed by
some individuals over others determine which shall live and which shall
die; that, as the circumstances in which life is to be maintained
change, the character and structure of organisms must change also in
order to be accommodated thereto, but that the changes which
consequently take place in some individuals are better suited to the
altered circumstances than those which take place in other individuals;
that individual offspring, moreover, although always strongly resembling
their parents in the majority of particulars, always exhibit some slight
differences from them; that of these differences such as do not render
the offspring less fit will almost of necessity render them more fit
for coping with their rivals; and that superior fitness, however
acquired, is as likely as any other quality to be transmitted to
succeeding generations--all these are indisputable facts, and from
these, as premisses, it seems to me not so much to be legitimately
deducible that most existing species may have been produced 'by descent,
with modification, through natural selection,' or 'survival of the
fittest,' as necessarily to