68 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



These remarks have been quoted at length, because they 

 so greatly intensify the difficulties brought forward in this 

 chapter. If the most favourable variations have to con- 

 tend with such difficulties, what must be thought as to 

 the chance of preservation of the slightly displaced eye 

 in a sole, or of the incipient development of baleen in a 

 whale ? 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 



It has been here contended that certain facts, out of 

 many which might have been brought forward, are in- 

 consistent with the origination of species by " Natural 

 Selection" only or mainly. 



Mr. Darwin's theory requires minute, indefinite, for- 

 tuitous variations of all parts in all directions, and he 

 insists that the sole operation of " Natural Selection " upon 

 such variations is sufficient to account for the great majority 

 of organic forms, with their most complicated structures, 

 intricate mutual adaptations, and delicate adjustments. 



To this conception have been opposed the difficulties 

 presented by such a structure as the form of the giraffe, 

 which ought not to have been the solitary structure it is 

 also the minute beginnings and the last refinements of 

 protective mimicry equally difficult, or rather impossible to 

 accpunt for by " Natural Selection." Again, the difficulty 

 as to the heads of flat-fishes has been insisted on, as also 

 the origin, and at the same time the constancy, of the 

 limbs of the highest animals. Eeference has also been 

 made to the whalebone of whales, and to the impossibility 

 of understanding its origin through " Natural Selection " 



we can judge, neither beneficial nor injurious." See "Descent of Man," 

 vol. i. p. 152. 



