in ORDINARY GENERATION 145 



we are driven to another conception 

 without which the theory would not at 

 all correspond to the facts of life. If 

 ordinary generation has been the sole 

 agent in producing all but the few 

 original germs, then ordinary generation 

 must have been sometimes made to do 

 some very extraordinary things. Mr. 

 Spencer very fairly admits that man has 

 never yet seen a new species born by 

 ordinary generation. This may be 

 theoretically accounted for by the short- 

 ness of man's life as yet upon the globe. 

 But, unfortunately for the theory, the 



long ages of Palaeontology give no clue 



it 



to the immediate parentage of any new 

 species. There are, indeed, intermediate 

 forms, and these are called links. But 

 somehow the links never seem to touch. 

 The new forms always appear suddenly 

 from no known source and generally, 

 if of a new type, exhibiting that type in 



