CHAPTER I 



THE CLASSICAL FACTORS ARE POWERLESS TO EXPLAIN THE 

 ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



IT is not difficult to show that neither the Darwinian 

 nor the Lamarckian hypothesis enables us to understand 

 the origin of characteristics that constitute a new 

 species. 



Let us take the Darwinian hypothesis first. 



Natural selection, considered as an essential factor of 

 transformism, has grave obstacles to overcome, obstacles 

 of principle and obstacles of fact. It is unnecessary 

 to discuss them all, for one alone, the gravest, suffices to 

 demonstrate the impotence of the system. It is this : 



In order that any given modification occurring in 

 the characteristics of a species or an individual, should 

 give to that species or to that individual an appreciable 

 advantage in the struggle for life, it is evident that this 

 modification must be sufficiently marked to be utilisable. 



Now an embryonic organ, a modification merely 

 adumbrated, appearing by chance in a being or a group 

 of beings, can be of no practical use and give them no 

 advantage. 1 



The bird comes from the reptile. Now an embryonic 

 wing, appearing by chance, one knows neither how nor 

 why, in the ancestral reptile, could not give that reptile 

 the capacity or the advantage of flight, and would give 

 it no superiority over other reptiles unprovided with the 

 unusable rudiment. It is therefore impossible to attribute 

 to natural selection the transition from reptile to bird. 



The batrachian comes from the fish. There is no 



1 It is needless on the other hand to emphasise further how alien to 

 science and philosophy alike it is to make chance the principal factor of 

 evolution. 



