68 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES [Chap. 



These remarks have been cj[uoted at length, because they 

 so greatly intensify the dii*lculties brought forward in this 

 chapter. If tlie most favourable variations have to con- 

 tend with such difilculties, what must be thouglit as to 

 the chance of preservation of the slightly disphiced eye 

 in a sole, or of the incipient development of baleen in a 

 whale ? 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 



It has been here contended tliat certain facts, out of 

 many which might have been brought forward, are in- 

 consistent with tlie origination of species by " Natural 

 Selection " only or mainly. 



Mr. Darwin's theory requires minute, indefinite, for- 

 tuitous variations of all [)arts 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, witli their most complicated structures, 

 intricate mutual adaptations, and delicate adjustments. 



To this conception have been opposed the difhculties 

 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 

 axjcount for by "Xatural Selection." Again, the difficulty 

 as to the heads of llat-fishes has been insisted on, as also 

 the origin, and at the same time the constancy, of the 

 limbs of the highest animals. Iieference has also been 

 made to thu whalebone of whales, and to the ini])ossibility 

 of understanding its origin through "Natural Selection" 



we can judge, ueitlxT honoficial nor iujurions." — See "Descent ol" 2ilan," 

 vol. i. p. 152. 



