CHAPTER VII 



Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 



Longevity — Modifications not necessarily Simultaneous — Modifications ap- 

 parently of no Direct Service — Progressive Development — Characters of 

 Small Functional Importance, the most Constant — Supposed Incompe- 

 tence of Natural Selection to account for the Incipient Stages of Useful 

 Structures — Causes which interfere with the Acquisition through Natu- 

 ral Selection of Useful Structures — Gradations of Structure with 

 Changed Functions — Widely Different Organs in Members of the Same 

 Class, developed from One and the Same Source — Reasons for dis- 

 believing in Great and Abrupt Modifications. 



I will devote this chapter to the consideration of various miscel- 

 laneous objections which have been advanced against my views, 

 as some of the previous discussions may thus be made clearer ; but 

 it would be useless to discuss all of them, as many have been made 

 by writers who have not taken the trouble to understand the sub- 

 ject. Thus a distinguished German naturalist has asserted that 

 the weakest part of my theory is, that I consider all organic beings 

 as imperfect: what I have really said is, that all are not as perfect 

 as they might. have been in relation to their conditions; and this is 

 shown to be the case by so many native forms in many quarters of 

 the world having yielded their places to intruding foreigners. Nor 

 can organic beings, even if they were at any one time perfectly 

 adapted to their conditions of life, have remained so, when their 

 conditions changed, unless they themselves likewise changed; and 

 no one will dispute that the physical conditions of each country, 

 as well as the number and kinds of its inhabitants, have under- 

 gone many mutations. 



A critic has lately insisted, with some parade of mathematical 

 accuracy, that longevity is a great advantage to all species, so that 

 he who believes in natural selection "must arrange his genealogical 

 tree" in such a manner that all the descendants have longer lives 

 than their progenitors! Cannot our critics conceive that a biennial 

 plant or one of the lower animals might range into a cold climate 

 and perish there every winter; and yet, owing to advantages 

 gained through natural selection, survive from year to year by 



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