WHAT EVOLUTION IS 119 



natural selection to obtain an initial 

 hold. From the time of Darwin this 

 has been the great obstacle to his 

 theory, and no Darwinist has thus 

 far successfully met this objection. 



When we view the face of organic 

 nature, we see such an array of mar- 

 velous adaptations and such a bewil- 

 derment of plant and animal species, 

 many of which are separated one 

 from another by differences of a very 

 slight kind, that we are forced to 

 admit that it is inconceivable that 

 natural selection, as understood by 

 Darwin at least, could have produced 

 what is before us. This conviction 

 has so impressed itself upon the minds 

 of most modern evolutionists, that 

 they have one by one come to the con- 

 clusion that natural selection, which 

 in Weismann's time was declared to 

 be all-sufficient in evolution, may 

 after all be of little real significance. 



