102 DARWINIANA. 



was supposed to be separated from the present era by 

 a clear line, it is now certain that a gradual replace- 

 ment of old forms by new ones is' strongly suggestive 

 of some mode of origination which may still be opera- 

 tive. When species, like individuals, were found to 

 die out one by one, and apparently to come in one by 

 one, a theory for what Owen sonorously calls "the 

 continuous operation of the ordained becoming of liv- 

 ing things " could not be far off. 



That all such theories should take the form of a 

 derivation of the new from the old seems to be inevi- 

 table, perhaps from our inability to conceive of any 

 other line of secondary causes in this connection. 

 Owen himself is apparently in travail with some trans- 

 mutation theory of his own conceiving, which may 

 yet see the light, although Darwin's came first to the 

 birth. Different as the two theories will probably 

 be, they cannot fail to exhibit that fundamental re- 

 semblance in this respect which betokens a commu- 

 nity of origin, a common foundation on the general 

 facts and the obvious suggestions of modern science. 

 Indeed — to turn the point of a pungent simile directed 

 against Darwin — the difference between the Darwin- 

 ian and the Owenian hypotheses may, after all, be 

 only that between homoeopathic and heroic doses of 

 • the same drug. 



If theories of derivation could only stop here, con- 

 tent with explaining the diversification and succession 

 of species between the tertiary period and the present 

 tune, through natural agencies or secondary causes 

 still in operation, we fancy they would not be generally 

 or violently objected to by the savants of the present 



