ABSTRACT
Nature has placed strong and fast barriers round species, so that their identity should be preserved, and their identity is kept distinct from century to century. The need for clearness of definition could not be better illustrated than by the discussion of the law of hybridity, and the want of it lands Darwin in many contradictions—some real and some apparent. But, whatever the exceptions, in all classes of organisms there is always a tendency of reversion to type, and it is idle to suppose that the laws of hybridity will account for any radical mutation. The great law of hybridity is absolutely fatal to any development, and geology abounds with facts and evidence in support of it. Hybrids of animals are rarely fertile:—“Hardly any cases have been ascertained with certainty of hybrids from two distinct species of animals being perfectly fertile.”
