240 THE COMING OF AGE OF vn 



be left ; if it has not taken place, there will lie 

 its refutation. 



What was the state of matters in 1859 ? Let 

 us hear Mr. Darwin, who may be trusted always 

 to state the case against himself as strongly as 

 possible. 



'* On this doctrine of the extermination of an 

 infinitude of connecting links between the living 

 and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each 

 successive period between the extinct and still 

 older species, why is not every geological forma- 

 tion charged with such links ? Why does not 

 every collection of fossil remains afford plain 

 evidence of the gradation and mutation of the 

 forms of life ? We meet with no such evidence, 

 and this is the most obvious and plausible of the 

 many objections which may be urged against my 

 theory." 1 



Nothing could have been more useful to the 

 opposition than this characteristically candid 

 avowal, twisted as it immediately w T as into an 

 admission that the writer's views were contra- 

 dicted by the facts of palaeontology. But, in fact, 

 Mr. Darwin made no such admission. What he 

 says in effect is, not that palseontological evidence 

 is against him, but that it is not distinctly in his 

 favour ; and, without attempting to attenuate the 

 fact, he accounts for it by the scantiness and the 

 imperfection of that evidence. 



1 Origin of Species, ed. 1, p. 463. 



