5-S Scientific Sophisms. 



of semi-acute reasoning upon what might pos- 

 sibly have occurred, under conditions which 

 seem never to have been fulfilled ; " but of direct 

 and positive testimony, whether derived from 

 the experience of mankind or from the geolo- 

 gical record, there is no fragment whatever. 



Mr. Darwin himself, as shown above, 1 ' is so 

 far from pretending that his theory has re- 

 ceived any "verification," as to acknowledge, 

 with characteristic candour, that in the existence 

 of structures which "cannot be accounted for 

 by any form of selection," 2 we have an objection 

 which is " fatal " to that theory. And even in 

 the case of other objections not thus pronounced 

 absolutely "fatal" in form, his admissions are 

 such as to show that they are fatal in fact. 

 Thus, for instance, the absence of transitional 

 forms between different species has always been 

 recognised as a serious difficulty ; and Mr. Dar- 

 win, in the attempt to obviate it, succeeds only 

 in showing how very serious it is. These are his 

 words : 



" Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely 

 graduated organic chain ; and this, perhaps, is the most 

 obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against 



1 Anle, p. 23. 



* "Descent of Man," vol. ii. p. 387. 



