PREFACE xvii 



But let us assume that a period of one million 

 years sufficed to accomplish it ; is it possible, I ask, 

 if such evolution really took place, to believe that the 

 geological record should contain no evidence or indica- 

 tion of its having taken place, and should not show 

 occasional intermediate forms to intimate the advance 

 that was in progress while the one form was being 

 developed into the other ? 



It is not possible to believe this. It were pre- 

 posterous to believe it. When Darwin attempted to 

 explain away the import of the fact that no inter- 

 mediate forms showing the ascent of life from lower 

 to higher forms were represented ^>y fossil specimens 

 in the geological record, by directing attention to the 

 imperfection of that record, the acceptance of his 

 explanation was a monumental evidence of his ascend- 

 ancy over the minds of his contemporaries. 



For, according to Darwin's own showing, the 

 number of intermediate forms due to the action of 

 Natural Selection must have been vastly more 

 numerous than the finished forms. Now the imperfec- 

 tion of the geological record does not tell more strongly 

 against the preservation of intermediate forms than it 

 does against the preservation of finished forms. It 

 would therefore be not less than miraculous that 

 while finished forms were yielded to geological 

 research in large and growing numbers, not a single 

 intermediate form pointing to the origin of a finished 

 generic form should emerge, if Darwin's intermediate 

 forms had ever existed. 



