Permanence and Evolution. 131 



Darwinism. I do not mean to say that it can 

 be proved to be impossible that all these types 

 have been formed by natural selection. We 

 know so little of the mutual interdependence of 

 the parts of any organism, and of their relation 

 to the creature's surroundings, that we cannot 

 say of any one character that it cannot have 

 been acquired by natural selection. 



But I think it cannot reasonably be denied 

 that the impression produced by the facies 

 of any genus or family is as unlike as any- 

 thing can be to what natural selection might 

 be expected to produce, unaided by some far 

 profounder and more penetrating cause of 

 likeness and unlikeness. What we should 

 expect unaided natural selection to show us 

 would be a multitude of forms differing in 

 nothing but some one or two points, often or 

 generally traceable to the creature's habitat 

 and the conditions of life under which it exists. 

 Anything more opposite to what we actually do 



