A REPLY TO ''FALLACIES OF EVOLUTION:' 



113 



life and natural selection must be equally powerless" — a statement 

 which is self -evidently absurd ; for, although a man may doubt wheth- 

 er the alleged cause (natural selection) is competent to effect all that 

 Darwinians here suppose, this writer only weakens his own case by 

 showing that he is ignorant of such a cause having been alleged. And 

 no less unfortunate is he when " attending to the suggestions of the 

 mind " in the matter of protective coloring. Foi', after stating one or 

 two cases of protective coloring, he makes the startling announcement : 

 "Here, then, are examples of the adaptation of the species to the con- 

 ditions of their existence which can not .... be by virtue of any 

 law of nature ; for Ave neither know of any such law, nor can we con- 

 ceive of any that could produce the effects in question exclusively in 

 the case of the few species alluded to without regard to the multitudes 

 inhabiting the same localities." Here, again, the most charitable sup- 

 position we can make is, that the wi'iter has never read the doctrines 

 which he undertakes to criticise. For, if, after having read all the 

 evidence in favor of protective coloring, he could think to dispose of 

 it by so absurd a criticism as this, we must refuse to consign him a 

 place even among those whom he calls " men of reasoning." If three 

 animals — A, B, and C — inhabit the same locality, and if A is protec- 

 tively colored, while B and C are not, what must we think of the 

 reasoning which from these premises alone definitely concludes that 

 the imitative coloring of A can not conceivably be due to the opera- 

 tion of a natural law ? There may be a thousand and one reasons 

 why B and C should not be affected by the law of protective coloring ; 

 yet, merely on the ground that all animals in the same locality are not 

 so affected, we are told to conclude that all the thousands of cases in 

 which animals are thus affected constitute no evidence of the opera- 

 tion of a natural law ! Did ever our " man of reasoning " hear of a 

 method of reasoning called the method of concomitant variations ? 



Lastly, the reviewer enlarges upon the absence of paleontological 

 evidence of connecting specific forms ; but, as we have already sufii- 

 ciently gauged his competence to deal with such subjects as the imper- 

 fection of the geological record, I will not occupy further space by 

 considering what he says, fui'ther than to show by one concluding 

 quotation the truly appalling state of things, which " it can require 

 but little reflection to perceive " would have been the result of organic 

 evolution, had the world been so unfortunate as to have been subject 

 to such a process. " It requires but a very small stretch of thought 

 further to perceive that, so far from such a principle of creation afford- 

 ing reasonable grounds for the inference of the development of the 

 species, according to the present intent of the term, the result must 

 have been the absolute exclusion of all species whatever — the produc- 

 tion of an indiscriminate mass, or rather moh of animals, extending in 

 indistinguishable series from one end of the creation to the other." 



Here I gladly stop. It is not to be expected that the majority of 



TOL. XTI. 8 



