THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. 



[CHAT. 



Professor Huxley seems inclined 1 to cut the Gordian 

 knot by considering the shoulder structure of the ptero- 

 dactyle as independently educed, and having relation to 

 physiology only. This conception is one which harmonizes 

 completely with the views here advocated, and with those 

 of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who also calls in direct modifi- 

 cation to the aid of "Natural Selection." That merely 

 minute indefinite variations in all directions should un- 

 aided have independently built up the shoulder structure 

 of the ptorodactyles and carinate birds, and have laterally 

 depressed their optic lobes, at a time so far back as the 

 deposition of the Oolite strata, 2 is a coincidence of the 



THK ARCHEOPTERYX (OF THE OOLITE STRATA). 



highest improbability; but that an innate power and 

 evolutionary law, aided by the corrective action of 

 "Natural Selection," should have furnished like needs 

 with like aids, is not at all improbable. The difficulty 

 does not tell against the theoly of evolution, but only 



1 " Proceedings of Geological Society," November 1869, p. 38. 



? The archeopteryx of the Oolite has the true carinate shoulder structure. 



