58 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



CHAPTER III 

 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



IT has been remarked as a somewhat significant 

 circumstance that the title of that remarkable work 

 The Origin of Species by Natural Selection, which 

 has so deeply impressed the mind of our age, contains 

 in itself the elements of the refutation of its own 

 leading principle. 



Of the origin of species the book tells us nothing. 

 It merely discusses certain possible modes of descent 

 with modification whereby new species may be de 

 rived from those previously existing. Of species it 

 tells us nothing, except that if its contentions be 

 maintained there can be no permanent kinds of 

 animals or plants, or true species, in the old sense of 

 the term, but only an indefinite shading of forms into 

 one another, and a perpetual flux, by which what may 

 be called a species at one period will be something 

 different at another. Natural selection again, if there 

 is such a thing, can take place only after species 

 already exist with numerous individuals to be selected 

 from ; and unless it is merely another name for 



