CHAPTEK IX. 



NATURAL SELECTION CRITICISED. 



WE have approached, in the foregoing, the main interest, 

 natural selection, from a variety of directions, and are 

 now more or less prepared, presumably, for a final 

 appraisement of the theory. We shall take the suc- 

 cessive steps in it, and examine them in their order; 

 referring always to the account (i. 82) to his own 

 children, which, on the part of Mr. Darwin, we have 

 so far seen already. 



Mr. Darwin starts, as is natural, with the voyage of 

 the Beagle and what suggestions it had led him to, 

 specially so far as it concerned (1) The Pampean fossils, 

 (2) The succession southwards of the South American 

 Forms, and (3) The peculiar aspect of the Galapagos 

 productions. 



1. " Formerly the American continent must have 

 swarmed with great monsters : now we find mere pigmies." 

 These words of the Journal (p. 173) refer to the extinct 

 Megatherium, Megalonyx, Scelidotherium, Mylodon, Glyp- 

 todon, Macrauchenia,Toxodonj etc., as " the great monsters." 

 and to the existent armadillos as " the mere pigmies." 

 In number, the former seem to be inexhaustible ; " the 

 whole area of the Pampas," we are told (p. 155), " is one 

 wide sepulchre " of their remains ; and in size they are 

 gigantic. Especially is it the Glyptodon that is in place 



