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our experience of the present. And this indeed is one of 
the axioms of geological science. Naturally those who 
believe that Organic Evolution can only be brought about 
to-day by Natural Selection, will assume that it was so 
from the first, as now. But those who believe that there 
has been an Organic Evolution without Natural Selection 
in the present, and that Natural Selection is impossible 
now, will search for evidence to show the operation of 
other laws, and haply to find actual evidence that Natural 
Selection could not act, then, any more than at the present 
time. And this is what I shall now attempt to establish. 
We have an illustration of Mr. Darwin’s use of this 
inference from known facts in the case of the ancon ram 
and the turnspit dog. We know that the variety of the 
ancon ram arose suddenly, and was endowed with the 
power of impressing its own likeness upon its offspring 
We know that the same phenomenon has been repeated in 
the case of the japanned peacock and the Mauchamp ram. 
No one could have guessed what was the origin of the 
ancon and other breeds, had it not been a matter of 
experience ; but from this experience Mr. Darwin infers, 
that “ some of the peculiarities of the several breeds of the 
dog have probably arisen suddenly—for instance, the 
shape of the legs and body in the turnspit of Europe.” 
That the ancon variation may have appeared in nature, 
and has so appeared, is obvious from the fact that there 
are ancon jaguars in Paraguay and ancon pariah dogs 
in India. Mr. Darwin, on the ground of these facts, infers 
that the turnspit dogs depicted on the tombs of Egypt 
in remote historical times, may have arisen in a similar 
manner. 
We have seen the immense difference which exists 
between the improved pigs and the common pigs, and 
still more the wild boar. A similar difference obtains