184 CRITICISMS ON " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES " 



organisms and the cherishing of the lower forms of life. 

 Cryptogamic vegetation would have the advantage over 

 Phanerogamic ; Hydrozoa over Corals ; Crustacea over 

 Insecta, and Amphipoda and Isopoda over the higher 

 Crustacea ; Cetaceans and Seals over the Primates ; the 

 civilization of the Esquimaux over that of the European. 



" 5. Pelzeln has also objected that if the later organisms have 

 proceeded from the earlier, the whole developmental series, from 

 the simplest to the highest, could not now exist ; in such a case the 

 simpler organisms must have disappeared." 



To this Professor Kolliker replies, with perfect justice, 

 that the conclusion drawn by Pelzeln does not really follow 

 from Darwin's premisses, and that, if we take the facts of 

 Palaeontology as they stand, they rather support than 

 oppose Darwin's theory. 



" 6. Great weight must be attached to the objection brought 

 forward by Huxley, otherwise a warm supporter of Darwin's hypo- 

 thesis, that we know of no varieties which are sterile with one 

 another, as is the rule among sharply distinguished animal forms. 



" If Darwin is right, it must be demonstrated that forms may be 

 produced by selection, which, like the present sharply distinguished 

 animal forms, arc infertile, when coupled with one another, and tlu's 

 has not been done." 



The weight of this objection is obvious ; but our ignor- 

 ance of the conditions of fertility and sterility, the want of 

 carefully conducted experiments extending over long series 

 of years, and the strange anomalies presented by the results 

 of the cross-fertilization of many plants, should all, as Mr. 

 Darwin has urged, be taken into account in considering it. 



The seventh objection is that we have already discussed 

 (supra, p. 178). 



The eighth and last stands as follows : 



" 8. The developmental theory of Darwin is not needed to enable 

 us to understand the regular harmonious progress of the complete 

 series of organic forms from the simpler to the more perfect. 



" The existence of general laws of Nature explains this harmony, 

 even if we assume that all beings have arisen separately and inde- 

 pendent of one another. Darwin forgets that inorganic nature, in 

 which there can be no thought of genetic connexion of forms, exhibits 

 the same regular plan, the same harmony, as the organic world ; 

 and that, to cite only one example, there is as much a natural 

 system of minerals as of plants and animals." 



