basis on which it rests, in its rigorously scientific method, and in
its power of explaining biological phenomena, as was the hypothesis of
Copernicus to the speculations of Ptolemy. But the planetary orbits
turned out to be not quite circular after all, and, grand as was the
service Copernicus rendered to science, Kepler and Newton had to come
after him. What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too
circular? What if species should offer residual phenomena, here and
there, not explicable by natural selection? Twenty years hence
naturalists may be in a position to say whether this is, or is not, the
case; but in either event they will owe the author of 'The Origin of
Species' an immense debt of gratitude. We should leave a very wrong
impression on the reader's mind if we permitted him to suppose that the
value of that work depends wholly on the ultimate justification of the
theoretical views which it contains. On the contrary, if they were
disproved to-morrow, the book would still be the best of its kind--the
most compendious statement of well-sifted facts bearing on the doctrine
of species that has ever appeared. The chapters on Variation, on the
Struggle for Existence, on Instinct, on Hybridism, on the Imperfection
of the Geological Record, on Geographical Distribution, have not only
no equals, but, so far as our knowledge goes, no competitors, within
the range of biological literature. And viewed as a whole, we do not
believe that, since the publication of Von Baer's Researches on
Development, thirty years ago, any work has appeared calculated to
exert so large an influence, not only on the future of Biology, but in
extending the domination of Science over regions of thought into which
she has, as yet, hardly penetrated.