128 SPECIES NOT 



part in the parents." (Page 1G7.) 



We now arrive at the sixth chapter, in which 

 Mr. Darwin meets many of the objections urged 

 in the preceding pages, under the head of "Dif- 

 ficulties on Theory." No one knows better than 

 Mr. Darwin, the many difficulties that beset his 

 path in endeavouring to establish a theory so 

 wild and improbable as that which he has ad- 

 vanced. It might be expected, therefore, that 

 he would here and there overhaul these objections, 

 and place them in as favourable a light as he 

 can for his case. 



1. The absence or rarity of transitional va- 

 rieties is the first difficulty which Mr. Darwin 

 deals with. 



He answers it by bringing into play two of 

 the pillars of his theory, neither of which, in the 

 sense used by Mr. Darwin, have been proved. 

 He says that "extinction" and "natural selection" 

 going hand in hand, will, in "the very process 

 of formation and perfection of the new form," 

 exterminate all the others. That they are not 

 found in a fossil state, he believes to be owing 

 to the "imperfection of the geological record." 



What a crowd of objections rise to the mind 

 in reading these very unsatisfactory answers. 

 Let any naturalist look at whatever group he 

 chooses in the six great classes of organized 

 beings. Let him extend his examination to 

 the still greater divisions of orders, families, 

 genera, and species. In the enormous mass of 

 living things, he will find some imagined anomalies 



