DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 169 



be harmless if it were. Besides, we feel quite unable 

 to answer some of these objections, and it is pleasanter 

 to take up those which one thinks he can. 



Among the unanswerable, perhaps the weightiest 

 of the objections, is that of the absence, in geological 

 deposits, of vestiges of the intermediate forms which 

 the theory requires to have existed. Here all that 

 Mr. Darwin can do is to insist upon the extreme im- 

 perfection of the geological record and the uncertainty 

 of negative evidence. But, withal, he allows the force 

 of the objection almost as much as his opponents urge 

 it — so much so, indeed, that two of his English critics 

 turn the concession unfairly upon him, and charge 

 him with actually basing his hypothesis upon these 

 and similar difficulties — as if he held it because of the 

 difficulties, and not in spite of them ; a handsome re- 

 turn for his candor ! 



As to this imperfection of the geological record, 

 perhaps we should get a fair and intelligible illustra- 

 tion of it by imagining the existing animals and plants 

 of New England, with all their remains and products 

 since the arrival of the Mayflower, to be annihilated ; 

 and that, in the coming time, the geologists of a new 

 colony, dropped by the New Zealand fleet on its way 

 to explore the ruins of London, undertake, after fifty 

 years of examination, to reconstruct in a catalogue the 

 flora and fauna of our day, that is, from the close 

 of the glacial period to the present time. With all 

 the advantages of a surface exploration, what a beg- 

 garly account it would be ! How many of the land 

 animals and plants which are enumerated in the Massa« 

 chusetts official reports would it be likely to contain ? 



