It may be admitted that it would
profit an incipient species, if it were rendered in some slight degree
sterile when crossed with its parent form or with some other variety; for
thus fewer bastardised and deteriorated offspring would be produced to
commingle their blood with the new species in process of formation. But he
who will take the trouble to reflect on the steps by which this first
degree of sterility could be increased through natural selection to that
high degree which is common with so many species, and which is universal
with species which have been differentiated to a generic or family rank,
will find the subject extraordinarily complex. After mature reflection, it
seems to me that this could not have been effected through natural
selection. Take the case of any two species which, when crossed, produced
few and sterile offspring; now, what is there which could favour the
survival of those individuals which happened to be endowed in a slightly
higher degree with mutual infertility, and which thus approached by one
small step towards absolute sterility? Yet an advance of this kind, if the
theory of natural selection be brought to bear, must have incessantly
occurred with many species, for a multitude are mutually quite barren.
With sterile neuter insects we have reason to believe that modifications in
their structure and fertility have been slowly accumulated by natural
selection, from an advantage having been thus indirectly given to the
community to which they belonged over other communities of the same
species; but an individual animal not belonging to a social community, if
rendered slightly sterile when crossed with some other variety, would not
thus itself gain any advantage or indirectly give any advantage to the
other individuals of the same variety, thus leading to their preservation.
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