PDF - Wallace Online

162 NATURAL SELECTION vnment is, however, more plausible. The uncertainty of opinionamong naturalists as to which are species and which varieties,is one of Mr. Darwin's very strong arguments that these twonames cannot belong to things quite distinct in nature andorigin.The reviewer saysthat this argument is of no weight,because the works of man present exactly the same phenomena ;and he instances patent inventions, and the excessive difficultyof determining whether they are new or old. I accept theanalogy, though it is a very imperfect one, and maintain that,such as it is, it is all in favour of Mr. Darwin's views. Forare not all inventions of the same kind directly affiliated to acommon ancestor ? Are not improved steam-engines or clocksthe lineal descendants of some existing steam-engine or clock 1Is there ever a new creation in art or science any more thanin nature 1 Did ever patentee absolutely originate anycomplete and entire invention, no portion of which wasderived from anything that had been made or describedbefore 1 It is therefore clear that the difficulty of distinguishingthe various classes of inventions which claim to benew, is of the same nature as the difficulty of distinguishingvarieties and species, because neither are absolutely newcreations, but both are alike descendants of pre-existing forms,from which and from each other they differ by varying andoften imperceptible degrees. It appears, then, that howeverplausible this writer's objections may seem, whenever hedescends from generalities to any specific statement, hissupposed difficulties turn out to be in reality strongly confirmatoryof Mr. Darwin's view.The TIMES on Natural SelectionThe extraordinary misconception of the whole subject bypopular writers and reviewers is well shown by an articlewhich appeared in the Times newspaper on "The Reign ofLaw."Alluding to the supposed economy of nature, in theadaptation of each species to its own place and its special use,the reviewer remarks " : To this universal law of the greatesteconomy, the law of natural selection stands in directantagonism as the law of greatest possible waste ' of timeand of creative power. To conceive a duck with webbed feetand a spoon-shaped bill, living by suction, to pass naturally