2u8 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [xin. 



To this Professor Kulliker replies, with perfect justice, that 

 the conclusion drawn by Pelzeln does not really follow from 

 Darwin s premises, and that, if we take the facts of Palaeonto 

 logy as they stand, they rather support than oppose Darwin s 

 theory. 



&quot; 6. Great weight must be attached to the objection brought forward by 

 Huxley, otherwise a warm supporter of Darwin s hypothesis, that we know 

 of no varieties which are sterile with one another, as is the rule among 

 sharply distinguished animal forms. 



&quot; If Darwin is right, it must be demonstrated that forms may be produced 

 by selection, which, like the present sharply distinguished animal forms, 

 are infertile, when coupled with one another, and this has not been done.&quot; 



The weight of this objection is obvious ; but our ignorance of 

 the conditions of fertility and sterility, the want of carefully 

 conducted experiments extending over long series of years, and 

 the strange anomalies presented by the results of the cross- 

 fertilization of many plants, should all, as Mr. Darwin has urged, 

 be taken into account in considering it. 



The seventh objection is that we have already discussed 

 (supra, p. 261). 



The eighth and last stands as follows : 



44 8. The developmental theory of Darwin is not needed to enable us to 

 understand the regular harmonious progress of the complete series of 

 organic forms from the simpler to the more perfect. 



The existence of general laws of Nature explains this harmony, even 

 if we assume that all beings have arisen separately and independent of one 

 another. Darwin forgets that inorganic nature, in which there can be no 

 thought of genetic connexion of forms, exhibits the same regular plan, the 

 same harmony, as the organic world ; and that, to cite only one example, 

 there is as much a natural system of minerals as of plants and animals.&quot; 



We do not feel quite sure that we seize Professor Kolliker s 

 meaning here, but he appears to suggest that the observation of 

 the general order and harmony which pervade inorganic nature, 

 would lead us to anticipate a similar order and harmony in the 

 organic world. And this is no doubt true, but it by no means 

 follows that the particular order and harmony observed among 

 them should be that which- we see. Surely the stripes of dun 

 horses, and the teeth of the foetal Balccna, are not explained by 

 the &quot; existence of general laws of Nature.&quot; Mr. Darwin 



