XI.] SPECIFIC GENESIS. 235 



CHAPTER XL 



SPECIFIC GENESIS. 



Review of the Statements and Arguments of Preceding Chapters. Cumulative Argu- 

 ment against Predominant Action of "Natural Selection." Whether any thing 

 positive as well as negative can be enunciated. Constancy of Laws of Nature does 

 not necessarily imply Constancy of Specific Evolution. Possible Exceptional Sta- 

 bility of Existing Epoch. Probability that an Internal Cause of Change exists. 

 Innate Powers must be conceived as existing somewhere or other. Symbolism of 

 Molecular Action under Vibrating Impulses. Prof. Owen's Statement. Statement 

 of the Author's View. It avoids the Difficulties which oppose "Natural Selec- 

 tion." It harmonizes Apparently Conflicting Conceptions. Summary and Con- 

 clusion. 



HAVING now severally reviewed the principal biological 

 facts which bear upon specific manifestation, it remains to 

 sum up the results, and to endeavor to ascertain what, if 

 any thing, can be said positively, as well as negatively, on 

 this deeply interesting question. 



In the preceding chapters it has been contended, in the 

 first place, that no mere survival of the fittest accidental 

 and minute variations can account for the incipient stages 

 of useful structures, such as, e. g., the heads of flat-fishes, 

 the baleen of whales, vertebrate limbs, the laryngeal struct- 

 ures of the new-born kangaroo, the pedicellariae of Echin- 

 oderms, or for many of the facts of mimicry, and especially 

 those last touches of mimetic perfection, where an insect 

 not only mimics a leaf, but one worm-eaten and attacked 

 by fungi. 



Also, that structures like the hood of the cobra and the 

 rattle of the rattlesnake seem to require another explana- 

 tion. 



