These remarks have been quoted at length, because they so greatly intensify the difficulties brought forward in this chapter. If the most favourable variations have to contend with such difficulties, what must be thought as to the chance of preservation of the slightly displaced eye in a sole, or of the incipient development of baleen in a whale ?

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.

It has been here contended that certain facts, out of many which might have been brought forward, are inconsistent with the origination of species by "Natural Selection" only or mainly.

Mr. Darwin's theory requires minute, indefinite, fortuitous variations of all parts in all directions, and he insists that the sole operation of "Natural Selection" upon such variations is sufficient to account for the great majority of organic forms, with their most complicated structures, intricate mutual adaptations, and delicate adjustments.

To this conception have been opposed the difficulties presented by such a structure as the form of the giraffe, which ought not to have been the solitary structure it is also the minute beginnings and the last refinements of protective mimicry equally difficult, or rather impossible to account for by "Natural Selection." Again, the difficulty as to the heads of flat-fishes has been insisted on, as also the origin, and at the same time the constancy, of the limbs of the highest animals. Reference has also been made to the whalebone of whales, and to the impossibility of understanding its origin through "Natural Selection"

we can judge, neither beneficial nor injurious."-See "Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 152.

only; the same as regards the infant kangaroo, with its singular deficiency of power compensated for by maternal structures on the one hand, to which its own breathing organs bear direct relation on the other. Again, the delicate and complex pedicellariæ of Echinoderms, with a certain process of development (through a secondary larva) found in that class, together with certain other exceptional modes of development, have been brought forward. The appearance of colour in certain apes, the hood of the cobra, and the rattle of the rattlesnake, have also been cited. Again, difficulties as to the process of formation of the eye and ear, and as to the fully developed condition of those complex organs, as well as of the voice, have been considered. The beauty of certain shell-fish; the wonderful adaptations of structure, and variety of form and resemblance, found in orchids; together with the complex habits and social conditions of certain ants, have been hastily passed in review. When all these complications are duly weighed and considered, and when it is borne in mind how necessary it is for the permanence of a new variety that many individuals in each case should be simultaneously modified, the cumulative argument against the sole or predominant action of Natural Selection seems irresistible.

The author of this book can say, that, though by no means disposed originally to dissent from the theory of "Natural Selection," if only its difficulties could be solved, he has found each successive year that deeper consideration and more careful examination have more and more brought home to him the inadequacy of Mr. Darwin's theory to account for the preservation and intensification of incipient, specific, and generic characters. That minute, fortuitous,

and indefinite variations could have brought about such special forms and modifications as have been enumerated in this chapter, seems to contradict not imagination, but

reason.

That either many individuals amongst a species of butterfly should be simultaneously preserved through a similar accidental and minute variation in one definite direction, when variations in many other directions would also preserve; or that one or two so varying should succeed in supplanting the progeny of thousands of other individuals, and that this should by no other cause be carried so far as to produce the appearance (as we have before stated) of spots of fungi, &c.-are alternatives of an improbability so extreme as to be practically equal to impossibility.

In spite of all the resources of a fertile imagination, the Darwinian, pure and simple, is reduced to the assertion of a paradox as great as any he opposes. In the place of a mere assertion of our ignorance as to the way these phenomena have been produced, he brings forward as their explanation a cause which, it is contended in this work, is demonstrably insufficient.

Of course here, as elsewhere throughout nature, we have to do with the operation of fixed and constant natural laws, and the knowledge of these may before long be obtained by human patience or human genius. There seems, however, already enough evidence to show that these as yet unknown natural laws will never be resolved into the action of "Natural Selection," but will constitute or exemplify a mode and condition of organic action of which the Darwinian theory takes no account whatsoever.

CHAPTER III.

THE CO-EXISTENCE OF CLOSELY SIMILAR STRUCTURES

OF DIVERSE ORIGIN.

Chances against concordant variations.-Examples of discordant ones.Concordant variations not unlikely on a non-Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis.-Placental and implacental mammals.-Birds and reptiles. - Independent origins of similar sense organs.-The ear.—The eye. Other coincidences.-Causes besides "Natural Selection" produce concordant variations, in certain geographical regions.-Causes besides "Natural Selection" produce concordant variations, in certain zoological and botanical groups. -There are homologous parts not genetically related. -Harmony in respect of the organic and inorganic worlds.— Summary and conclusion.

THE theory of "Natural Selection" supposes that the varied forms and structure of animals and plants have been built up merely by indefinite, fortuitous,1 minute variations in every part and in all directions-those variations only being preserved which are directly or indirectly useful to the individual possessing them, or necessarily correlated with such useful variations.

On this theory the chances are almost infinitely great against the independent accidental occurrence and preservation of two similar series of minute variations resulting

1 By accidental variations Mr. Darwin does not, of course, mean to imply variations really due to "chance," but to utterly indeterminate antecedents.

in the independent development of two closely similar forms. In all cases, no doubt (on this same theory), some adaptation to habit or need would gradually be evolved, but that adaptation would surely be arrived at by different roads.

The organic world supplies us with multitudes of examples of similar functional results being attained by the most diverse means. Thus the body is sustained in the air by birds and by bats. In the first case it is so sustained by a limb in which the bones of the hand are excessively reduced, but which is provided with immense outgrowths

DAE

WING-BONES OF PTERODACTYLE, BAT, AND BIRD.

from the skin-namely, the feathers of the wing. In the second case, however, the body is sustained in the air by a limb in which the bones of the hand are enormously ncreased in length, and so sustain a great expanse of naked kin, which is the flying membrane of the bat's wing. Certain fishes and certain reptiles can also flit and take very prolonged jumps in the air. The flying-fish, however takes these by means of a great elongation of the rays of