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brought about. Mr. Darwin does not know how much 
Natural Selection has to do with the matter, and therefore, 
to avoid discussion on such a trivial point, it is assumed 
that Natural Selection has done all ; and on this ground 
the arguments for Organic Evolution are treated as the 
arguments for Natural Selection. 
But though Mr. Romanes’ Essay must be regarded as an 
inadequate exposition of The Origin of Species, the order 
in which the argument is stated in the latter work does, 
after all, suggest the idea that the arguments for Organic 
Evolution are arguments in favour of Natural Selection. 
The latter doctrine is expounded, and then the arguments 
for Organic Evolution are treated as confirmatory evidence. 
And it is thus very easy for Mr. Darwin to find many 
considerations which tend to confirm his theory, which are 
not by any manner of means the peculiar property of that 
theory. And this view is confirmed by the fact that what 
he does implicitly in The Origin of Species, he states 
explicitly in The Variation of Animals and Plants under 
Domestication. 
“The principle of Natural Selection may be looked at as a mere 
hypothesis, but rendered in some degree probable by what we 
positively know of the variability of organic beings in a state of 
nature—by what we positively know of the struggle for existence, 
and the consequent, almost inevitable preservation of favourable 
variations, and from the analogical formation of domestic races. 
Now this hypothesis maybe tested—and this seems tome the only 
fair and legitimate manner of considering the whole question—by 
trying whether it explains several large and independent classes 
of facts, such as the geological succession of organic beings, their 
distribution in past and present times, and their mutual affinities 
and homologies. If the principle of Natural Selection does explain 
these and other large bodies of facts, it ought to be received.”—(The 
Variation, vol. i., p. Q.) 
The theory of Natural Selection is thus tested and 
proved by the arguments which go to prove that the 
process of organic evolution has taken place. This seems