284 LIFE AND HABIT. ' 



out of his wolf-like ancestor. This is a mere guess, but 

 it gives the order of magnitude. Now, if so, how long 

 would it take to obtain an elephant from a protozoon or 

 even from a tadpole-like fish ? Ought it not to take 

 much more than a million times as long ? " (" Genesis 

 of Species," p. 155). 



I should be very sorry to pronounce any opinion 

 upon the foregoing data; but a general impression is 

 left upon my mind, that if the differences between an 

 elephant and a tadpole -like fish have arisen from the 

 accumulation of small variations that have had no direc- 

 tion given them by intelligence and sense of needs, then 

 no time conceivable by man would suffice for their 

 development. But grant " a little dose of reason and 

 judgement," even to animals low down in the scale of 

 nature, and grant this, not only during their later life, 

 but during their embryological existence, and see with 

 what infinitely greater precision of aim and with what 

 increased speed the variations would arise. Evolution 

 entirely unaided by inherent intelligence must be a 

 very slow, if not quite inconceivable, process. Evolution 

 helped by intelligence would still be slow, but not so 

 desperately slow. One can conceive that there has 

 been sufficient time for the second, but one cannot con- 

 ceive it for the first. 



I find from Mr. Mivart that objection has been taken 

 to Mr. Darwin's views, on account of the great odds 

 that exist against the appearance of any given variation 



