ORGANIC EVOLUTION WITHOUT NATURAL SELECTION, 
“ The playbill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of 
Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out.” 
—The Talisman. 
To those who believe that Natural Selection has been 
demonstrated to be a great law of nature beyond the 
shadow of a doubt, and who affirm that only those who 
are incapacitated by ignorance, misled by superficial 
knowledge, or blinded by theological prejudice, can hold 
the contrary opinion, it will seem an absurd thing to talk 
of the possibility of Organic Evolution without Natural 
Selection. It will seem as nonsensical as it is to talk of a 
representation of the play of Hamlet, the character of 
Hamlet being left out. And yet it is conceivable, to say 
the least, that a play might be designated by the name of 
a person who never appears upon the scene at all. That 
is actually the case in a dramatic representation known as 
Walker, London, of whom we hear nothing till the very 
last, when we discover that it is, or is pretended to be, the 
telegraphic address of the barber who has been posing as 
a world-renowned traveller. Nor does it seem to me 
inconceivable that a play of Hamlet Prince of Denmark 
might have been written, in which Hamlet should not 
appear ; in which we might hear of his return home, of his 
interview with the ghost, of his immediate retirement from