Chap. II. THE SPECIES OF MELITA. 



CHAPTER IL 



THE SPECIES OF MELITA. 



A FALSE supposition, when tlie consequences proceeding 

 from it are followed further and further, will sooner or 

 later lead to absurdities and palpable contradictions. 

 During the period of tormenting doubt — and this was 

 by no means a short one — when the pointer of the 

 scales oscillated before me in perfect uncertainty be- 

 tween the p'o and the con, and when any fact leading 

 to a quick decision would have been most welcome 

 to me, I took no small pains to detect some such con- 

 tradictions among the inferences as to the class of 

 Crustacea furnished by the Darwinian theory. But I 

 found none, either then, or subsequently. Those which 

 I thought I had found were dispelled on closer con- 

 sideration, or actually became converted into supports 

 for Darwin's theory. 



Nor, so far as I am aware, have any of the necessary 

 consequences of Darwin's hypotheses been proved by any 

 one else, to stand in clear and irreconcilable contradic- 

 tion. And yet, as the most profound students of the 

 animal kingdom are amongst Darwin's opponents, it 

 would seem that it ought to have been an easy matter 

 for them to crush him long since beneath a mass of ab- 



