On the Genesis of Species

r

s; as to whalebone; as to the young kangaroo; as to sea-urchins; as to certain processes of metamorphosis; as to the mammary gland; as to certain ape characters; as to the rattlesnake and cobra; as to the process of formation of

sufficiently considerable to be useful from the first to the individual possessing them. But Natural Selection utterly fails to account for the conservation and de

after mentioning the frequent sudden appearances of domestic varieties, he speaks of "the false belief as to the similarity of natural species in this respect."[16] In his work on the "Origin of Species," he also observes, "Natural Selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications."[17] And "Natura

r to facilitate the flight or concealment of the animals pursued on the other; provided always that these minute beginnings are of such a kind as really to have a certain efficiency, however small, in favour of

very general acceptance, seem less satisfactory when carefully analysed than th

ch times only those individuals (of what we assume to be the nascent giraffe species) which were able to reach high up would be preserved, and would become the parents of the following generation, some individuals of which would, of course, inherit that high-reaching power which alone preserved their parents. Only the high-reaching issue of these hig

from different Ungulata.[20] A careful observer of animal life, who has long resided in South Africa, explored the interior, and lived in the giraffe country, has assured the Author that the giraffe has powers of locomotion and endurance fully equal to those poss

as to allow them to rise on their hind limbs and graze on trees in a kangaroo-attitude, nor a power of climbing, nor, as far as known, any other modification tending to compensate for the comparative shortness of the neck. Again, it may perhaps be said that leaf-eating forms are exceptional, and that therefore the struggle to attain high branches would not affect many Ungulates. But surely, when these severe droughts neces

ll animals should be so coloured." And Mr. Wallace shows in reply how porcupines, tortoises and mussels, very hard-coated bombadier beetles, stinging insects and nauseous-tasted caterpillars, can afford to be brilliant by the various means of active defence or passive protection they possess, other than obscure colouration. He says "the attitudes of some insects may also protect them

e lofty branches of trees, has been for a time destroyed. In such a country we have a number of vegetable-feeding Ungulates, all of which present minute variations as to the length of the neck. If, as Mr. Darwin contends, the natural selection of these favourable variations has alo

he entire size and mass of the body (larger bones requiring stronger and more voluminous muscles and tendons, and these again necessitating larger nerves, more capacio

, while it is unchanged in proportions and structure-what are the necessary concomitant changes that have taken place in it? It is eight times as heavy; that is to say, it has to resist eight times the strain which gravitation puts on its structure; and in producing, as well as in arresting, every one of its movements, it has to overcome eight times the inertia. Meanwhile, the muscles and bones have severally increased their contractile and resisting powers, in proportion to the areas of their transverse sections; and hence are severally but four times as strong as they were. Thus, while the crea

generally must favourable variations as to the length of the neck have been accompanied by some unfavourable variation in some other part, neutralizing the action of the favourable one, the latter, moreover, only taking effect during these periods of drought! How often must not i

ass, many other instances will be f

st here suffice. In South America there is a family of butterflies, termed Heliconid?, which are very conspicuously coloured and slow in flight, and yet the individuals abound in prodigious numbers, and take no precautions to conceal themselves, even when at rest, during the night. Mr. Bates (the author of the very interesting work "Th

Heliconid?; Mr. Bates and other observers reporting that they have never seen th

butterflies put on, as it were, the exact dress of these off

f a bird began by capturing the slow-flying conspicuous Heliconid?, and found them always so disagreeable that it could not eat them, it would after a very few trials leave off catching them at all; and their whole appearance, form, colouring, and mode of flight is so peculiar, that there can be little doubt birds would soon learn to distinguish them at a long distance, and

d be easily distinguished and devoured, yet at a longer distance it might be mistaken for one of the uneatable group, and so be passed by and gain another day's life, which might i

LY IN FLIGHT

lace's "Malay

r portion of the base of the wings, and on the inner side towards the middle and apex, and it is very curious to observe how the usual marginal and transverse stri? of the group are here modified and strengthened so as to become adapted for an imitation of the venation of a leaf." ... "But this resemblance, close as it is, would be of little use if the habits of the insect did not accord with it. If the butterfly sat upon leaves or upon flowers, or opened its wings so as to expose the upper surface, or exposed and moved its head and antenn? as many other butterflies do, its disguise would be of little avail. We might be sure, however, from the analogy of many other cases, that the habits of the insect are such as still further to aid its deceptive garb; but we are not obliged to make any such supposition, since I myself had the good fortune to observe scores of Kallima paralekta, in Sumatra, and to capture many of them, and can vouch for the accuracy of the following details. These butterflies frequent dry forests, and fly very swiftly. They were seen to settle on a flower or a green leaf, but were man

et us suppose that the ancestors of these various animals were all destitute of the very special protections they at present possess, as on the Darwinian hypothesis we must do. Let it also be conceded that small deviations from the antecedent colouring or form would tend to make some of their ancestors escape destruction by causing them more or less frequently to be passed over, or mistaken by their persecutors. Yet the deviation must, as the event has shown, in each case be in some definite direction, whether it be towards some other animal or plant, or towards some dead or inorganic matter. But as, according to Mr. Darwin's theory, there is a constant tendency to indefinite variation, and as the minute incipient variations will be

ns would be preserved which tended to obscure the perception of an animal by its enemies, whatever direction those variations might take, and the common preservation of conflicting

ING-LEAF

es frequently mimic distinct species, a fact in perfect harmony with the foregoing cases, and explicable only on the theory of descent." But this at the best is but a partial and very incomplete explanation. It is one, moreover, which Mr. Wallace does not accept.[30] It is very incomplete, because it has no bearing on some of the most striking cases, and of course Mr. Darwin does not pretend that it has. We should have to go

ver with foliaceous excrescences of a clear olive-green colour, so as exactly to resemble a stick grown over by a creeping moss or jungermannia. The Dyak who brought it me assured me it was grown over with moss although alive, and it was only after a most minute examination that I could convince myself it was not so." Again, as to the leaf butterfly, he says:[33] "We come to a still more extraordinary part of the imitat

g indeed, but much more so how the first faint beginnings of the imitation of such injuries in the leaf can be developed in the animal into such a complete representation of them-a fortiori how simultaneous and

PECULIARLY PLACED EYE

in the "Transactions of t

of such a transformation by the action of "Natural Selection" is conceivable enough. Such sudden changes, however, are not those favoured by the Darwinian theory, and indeed the accidental occurrence of such a spontaneous transformation is hardly conceivable. But if this is not so, if the transit was gradual, then how such transit of one eye a minute fraction of the journey towards the other side of the head could benefit the individual is indeed far from clear. It seems, even, that such an incipient t

nd if, as most Darwinians would probably assume, the primeval vertebrate creature was also apodal, how are the preservation and developmen

, is a step the feasibility of which hardly commends itself to the reason, seeing the very different positions assumed by the ventral fins in different fishes. If the above suggestion made in opposition to the views here asserted be true, then the general constancy of position of the limbs of vertebrata may be considered as due to the position assumed by the primitive rugosities from which those limbs were generated. Clearly only two pairs of rugosities were so preserved and developed, and all limbs (on this view) are descendants of the same two pairs, as all have so similar a fundamental structure. Yet we find in many fishes the pair of fins, which correspond to the hinder limbs of other animals, placed so far forwards as to be either on the same level with, or actually in front of, the normally anterior pair of limbs; and such fishes are from this circumstance called "thoracic," or "jugular" fishes

OF A

ts mouth a great gulp of water, which it drives out again through the intervals of the horny plates of baleen, the fluid thus traversing the sieve of horny fibres, which retains the minute creatures on which these marine monsters subsist. Now it is obvious, that if this baleen had once attained such a size and development as to be at all useful, then its preservation and augmentation within serviceable limits, would be promoted by "Natural Selection" alone. But how to obtain the beginning of such useful development? There are indeed certain animals of exclusively aquatic habits (the dugong and manatee) which also possess more or less horn on the palate, and at first sight this might be taken as a mitigation of the difficulty; but it is not so, and the fact does not help us one step further along the

ALEEN SEEN OBLIQ

GO

prevented from falling into it (and thus causing death from choking) by the action of a small cartilaginous shield (the epiglottis), which at the right moment bends back and protects the orifice. Now the kangaroo is born in such an exceedingly imperfect and undeveloped condition, that it is quite unable to suck. The mother therefore places the minute blind and naked young upon the nipple, and then injects milk into it by means of a special muscular e

rom marsupial progenitors, or else the marsupials, sprung from a

ely, the Cetacea? That such a harmless structure need not be removed any Darwinian must confess, since a structure exists in both the crocodiles and gavials, which enables the former to breathe themselves while drowning the prey which they

t of the maternal structure, the young primeval kangaroo must be choked: while without the injecting power in the moth

US, OR S

removed fr

class (Echinodermata), the species of which possess generally spheroidal bodies, built up of multitudinous calcareous plates, and constitute the order Echinoidea. They are also popularly known as sea-eggs. Utte

?. (Immense

rom the surface of the animal's body foreign substances which would be prejudicial to it, and which it cannot otherwise get rid of. But granting this, what would be the utility of the first rudimentary beginnings of such structures, and how could such incipient buddings have ever preserved the life of a single Echinus? It is true that on Darwinian principles the ancestral form from which the sea-urchin developed was different, and must not be conceived merely as an Echinus devoid of pedicellari?; but this makes the difficulty none the

ly so decrease. Examples of such are the hair and teeth in the naked Turkish dog, the general deafness of white cats with blue eyes, the relation between the presence of more or less down on young birds when first hatched, and the future colour of their plumage,[36] with many others. But the idea that the modification of any internal or external part of the body of an Echinus carries with it the effect

sts. The adult is not formed from the egg directly, but the egg gives rise to a creature which swims freely about, feeds, and is even somewhat complexly organized. Soon a small lump appears on one side of its stomach; this enla

and inside that class it is only known in a few of the two-winged flies. Now, how "Natural Selection," or any "laws of correlation," can account for the gradual development of such an exceptional process of development-so extremely divergent from that of other insects-seems nothing less than inconceivable. Mr. Darwin himself[37] gives an account of a very peculiar and abnormal mode of development of a certain beetle, the sitaris, as described by M. Fabre. This insect, instead of at first appearing in its grub stage, and then, after a time, putting on the adult form, is at first active and furnished with six legs, two long antenn?, and four eyes. Hatched in

al Selection acted, but that there is a positive incompatibility between the cause assigned and the results. It will be stated shortly what wonderful instances of co-ordination and of unexpected utility Mr. Darwin has discovered in orchids. The discoverie

the surrounding conditions; the temporary and accidental trial and change of conditions, which caused the so-sucking young one to be the "fittest to survive" under the supposed circumstances, would soon cease to act, and then the progeny of the mother, with the accidentally hypertrophied, sebaceous glands, would have no tendency to survive the far outnumbering descendants of the normal ancestral form. If, on the other hand, we assume the change of c

ertain mammals? The utility of the modification, when accomplished, is

tend to communicate their own bright nuptial vesture. But there are peculiarities of colour and of form which it is exceedingly difficult to account for by any such action. Thus, amongst apes, the female is notoriously weaker, and is armed with much less powerful canine tusks than the male. When we consid

LESN

veloped these by persevering and long-continued selection, nor can they be thought to tend to the preservation of the individual. On the contrary, the presence of this enlarged appendage must occasion a slight increase in the need of nutriment, and in so far must b

BR

rom Sir Andrew Smith's "R

monstrate that the victims are alarmed and warned, but, on Darwinian principles, they certainly ought to be so. For the rashest and most incautious of the animals preyed on would always tend to fall victims, and the existing individuals being the long-descended progeny of the timid and cautious, ought to have an inherited

assert processes of development to be) a record of the actual steps by which such structures were first evolved in

ed, the depression increases and assumes the form of a sac, which changes into the aqueous humour and lens. An outgrowth of brain substance, on the othe

the brain. But tissue, in connexion with it, becomes in part changed, thus forming the aud

useless. But the eye and ear when fully developed present conditions which are hopelessly difficult to reconcile with the mere action of "Natural Selection." The difficulties with regard

parts; while it is obvious that the greater the number of variations which are needed in order to effect an improvement, the less will be the probability of their all occurring at once. It is no reply to this to say, what is no doubt abstractedly true, that whatever is possible becomes probable, if only time enough be allowed. There are improbabilities so great that the common sense of mankind treats them as impossibilities. It is not, for instance, in the strictest sense of the word, impossible tha

to make an improvement, then the probability of the

x

proposition, that the value of m is

=

010

30

urviving and leaving offspring, but only an extra chance, the value of which it is quite impossible to estimate." This difficulty is, as Mr. Murphy points out, greatly intensified by the undoubted fact that the wonderfully compl

ted with a filament of the auditory nerve, these nerves being like strings to be struck by the keys, i.e. by the fibres of Corti. Moreover, this apparatus is supposed to be a key-board in function as well as in appearance, the vibration of each one fibre giving rise, it is

ercised in the enjoyment and appreciation of the most perfect musical performances. How, then, could either the minute incipient stages, or the final perfecting touches of this admirable structur

ped by Natural Selection, because it is never required or used by them. The singing of savages is a more or less monotonous howling, and the females seldom sing at all. Savages certainly never choose their

ell-fish.[44] Here we meet with charming tints and elegant forms and markings of no direct use to their possessors[45] in the struggle for life, and of no indirect utility as regards sexual selection, for fertili

idental indefinite variations to have built up such a striking resemblance to insects, we ought to find that the preservation of the plant, or the perpetuation of its race, depends almost constantly on relations between bees, spiders, and flies respectively and the bee, spider, and fly orchids.[46] This process must have continued for ages constantly and persevering

h the visits of insects are utilized for the fertilization of orchids,-structures so wonderful that nothing

l into the bucket and crawl out at the spout. By the peculiar arrangement of the parts of the flower, the first bee which does so carries away the pollen-mass glued to his back, and then when he has his next involuntary bath in another flower, as he crawls out the pollen-mass attached to him comes in contact with the stigma of that second flower and fertilizes it. In the other example (Ca

. Mr. Darwin believes that he has got over this difficulty by having found individuals intermediate in form and structure[48] between the two working castes; others may think that we have in this belief of

the simultaneous modification of many individuals. This consideration seems to have escaped Mr. Darwin, for at p. 104 of his last (fifth) edition of "Natural Selection," h

istinguished; and, secondly, to imagine that a very slight balance in favour of some individual sport must lead to its perpetuation. All that can be said is that in the above example the favoured sport would be preserved once in fifty times. Let us consider what will be its influence on the main stock when preserved. It will breed and have a progeny of say 100; now this progeny will, on the whole, be intermediate between the average individual and the sport. The odds in favour of one of this generation of the new breed will be, say one and a half to one, as compared with the average individual; the odds in their favour will, therefore, be less than that of their parents; but owing to their greater number, the chances are that about one and a half of them would survive. Unless these breed together, a most improbable event, their progeny would again approach the average individual; there would be 150 of them, and their superiority would be, say in the ratio of one and a quarter to one; the probability would now be that nearly two of them would survive, and have 200 children, with an eighth superiority. Rather more than two of these would survive; but the superiority would again dwindle, until after a few generations it would no longer be observed, and would count for no more in the struggle for life than any of the

ability that the descendants of B will supplant the descendants of A; but let there be only 7001 A's against 7000 B's at first, and the chances are once more equal, while if there be 7002 A's to start, the odds would be laid on the A's. True, they stand a greater chance of being killed; but then they can better afford to be killed. The grain will only turn the scales when these are very nicely balanced, and an advantage in numbers counts for weight, eve

ore easily by having its beak curved, and if one were born with its beak strongly curved, and which consequently flourished, nevertheless there would be a very poor chan

chapter. If the most favourable variations have to contend with such difficulties, what must be thought as to the

AND CO

y which might have been brought forward, are inconsistent with

nsists that the sole operation of "Natural Selection" upon such is sufficient to account for the great majority

" 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 pedicellari? 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 development 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

er 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 c

n 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 caus

radox as great as any he opposes. In the place of a mere assertion of our ignorance as to the way these phenomena have been

obtained by human patience or human genius; but there is, it is believed, already enough evidence to show that these as yet unknown natural laws or law will never be resol