ABSTRACT
A change may be entirely beneficial to enable a species to perform its allotted and foreordained life-history on the earth; but the very benefits accruing for that purpose may be at the same time disastrous to its undue prolongation. The expression, “does not seem incredible,” does not bear on it the stamp of even approximate proof, which Darwin has throughout the “Origin of Species” put forth all his strength and exhausted all his ingenuity to establish. Darwin is throughout too fond of analogy. It is a perilous guide, and a dangerous weapon in the hands of even the most skilful controversialist, and never more so than when made use of in a scientific discussion. And Darwin’s law is reduced after all to a thing “in nubibus,” a “will-o’-the-wisp,” the “unsubstantial fabric of a vision,” a “ghost,” and nothing more.
