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more to less generalized types, within the limits of the period represented by the fossiliferous rocks?

"It negatives those doctrines, for it either shows us no evidence of such modification, or demonstrates such modification as has occurred to have been very slight; and as to the nature of that modification, it yields no evidence whatsoever that the earlier members of any long-continued group were more generalized in structure than the later

ones.

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Contrariwise, any admissible hypothesis of progressive modification must be compatible with persistence without progression through indefinite periods."1

In other words, the "hypothesis" requires some proof of "progressive modification," but it receives none. What it does receive is disproof only. To its demand for "progression," "the fossiliferous rocks" reply by exhibiting only "persistence without progression;" and that, "through indefinite periods." To its assumption of "almost endless stages of promotion from lower to higher forms of life," Palæontology responds by demonstrating that of these "stages" there is "no evidence," and of this "promotion" there is "no evidence whatsoever."

Nor does Professor Huxley stop here. Dealing with the supposition that such a hypothesis as that of progressive modification should "even

1 "On Persistent Types of Life :" in "Lay Sermons," p. 225.

2 Prof. Tyndall's "Science and Man."

tually be proved to be true," he makes the important statement that the only way in which it can be demonstrated will be "by observation and experiment upon the existing forms of life."1 But demonstration of this kind is non-existent. Abundantly and incessantly as it has been attempted, it has never yet been achieved. Tried by this test of "observation and experiment upon the existing forms of life," neither Organic Evolution in general nor Mr. Darwin's “Origin of Species" in particular, has any actual place in rerum naturâ.

On the second part of the question-that of the transmutation of species-Mr. Huxley writes:

"After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited by species in nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether artificial or natural." And again:

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"Our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis must be provisional so long as one link in the chain of evidence is wanting; and so long as all the animals and plants certainly produced by

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selective breeding from a common stock are fertile with one another, that link will be wanting." 1

"On a general survey of the theory," says Dr. Elam, "nothing strikes us more forcibly than the total absence of direct evidence of any one of the steps. No one professes to have ever seen a variety (producing fertile offspring with other varieties) become a species (producing no offspring, or no fertile offspring, with the original stock). No one knows of any living or any extinct species having given origin to any other, at once or gradually. Not one instance is adduced of any variety having ever arisen which did actually give its possessor, individually, any advantage in the struggle for life. Not one instance is recorded of any given variety having been actually selected for preservation, whilst its allies became extinct. There is an abundance

1 "Man's Place in Nature," p. 107.

2 "Automatism and Evolution." Contemporary Review, vol. xxix. p. 131. [In gratefully acknowledging my indebtedness to the series of papers of which this is the third (for the first and second, see Contemporary Review, vol. xxviii. pp. 537 and 725), perhaps I may be permitted to say that, by their fairness and forcefulness, their clearness and conclusiveness, their breadth of range and their minuteness of detail, Dr. Elam has laid a large circle of readers under lasting obligations.]

of semi-acute reasoning upon what might possibly have occurred, under conditions which seem never to have been fulfilled;" but of direct and positive testimony, whether derived from the experience of mankind or from the geological record, there is no fragment whatever.

Mr. Darwin himself, as shown above, is so far from pretending that his theory has received any "verification," as to acknowledge, with characteristic candour, that in the existence of structures which "cannot be accounted for by any form of selection," we have an objection which is "fatal" to that theory. And even in the case of other objections not thus pronounced absolutely "fatal" in form, his admissions are such as to show that they are fatal in fact. Thus, for instance, the absence of transitional forms between different species has always been recognised as a serious difficulty; and Mr. Darwin, in the attempt to obviate it, succeeds only in showing how very serious it is. These are his words:

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Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against

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my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record." 1

But "the extreme imperfection of the geological record" here hypothecated by way of "explanation," is so far from being a scientific fact, that it was never imagined even by Mr. Darwin himself until he perceived that unless it were asumed, "the testimony of the rocks,"not lessthan that of the "structures" presented by "mai, as well as every other animal,”—would be "fata" to his theory.

"I do no pretend that I should ever have suspected how poor record of the mutations of life the best preserved geobgical section presented, had not the difficulty of our not discovering innumerable transitional links between the species which appeared at the commencement and close of each formation, pressed so hardly on my theory." And again :-" He who rejects these views on the nature 3 the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory? 4

"2

3

On Mr. Larwin's own showing therefore, cadit quæstio. "These views" of his are to be rejected as uncientific, because they are unveri

1 "Origin of Species." Murray, 1859, p. 280.

2 Ibid., p.302.

3 i.e., the leged "extreme imperfection."
"Origin f Species,” p. 342.

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