II.] INCIPIENT STRUCTURES. 75 



of fungi, etc. are alternatives of an improbability so ex- 

 treme as to be practically equal to impossibility. 



In spite of all the resources of a fertile imagination, the 

 Darwinian, pure and simple, is reduced to the assertion of 

 a paradox as great as any he opposes. In the place of a 

 mere assertion of our ignorance as to the way these phe- 

 nomena have been produced, he brings forward, as their 

 explanation, a cause which it is contended in this work is 

 demonstrably insufficient. 



Of course in this matter, as elsewhere throughout Nature, 

 we have to do with the operation of fixed and constant 

 natural laws, and the knowledge of these may before long 

 be obtained by human patience or human genius ; but there 

 is, it is believed, already enough evidence to show that these 

 as yet unknown natural laws or law will never be resolved 

 into the action of " Natural Selection," but will constitute 

 or exemplify a mode and condition of organic action of which 

 the Darwinian theory takes no account whatsoever. 



