If it is inconsistent with any one
phenomenon, it must be rejected; if it fails to explain any one
phenomenon, it is so far weak, so far to be suspected; though it may
have a perfect right to claim provisional acceptance.
Now, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as I am aware, inconsistent
with any known biological fact; on the contrary, if admitted, the facts
of Development, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geographical Distribution,
and of Palaeontology, become connected together, and exhibit a meaning
such as they never possessed before; and I, for one, am fully
convinced, that if not precisely true, that hypothesis is as near an
approximation to the truth as, for example, the Copernican hypothesis
was to the true theory of the planetary motions.
But, for all this, our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis must be
provisional so long as one link in the chain of evidence is wanting;
and so long as all the animals and plants certainly produced by
selective breeding from a common stock are fertile, and their progeny
are fertile with one another, that link will be wanting. For, so long,
selective breeding will not be proved to be competent to do all that is
required of it to produce natural species.
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