92 CRITICISMS ON " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES " m 



The weight of this objection is obvious ; but our 

 ignorance 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-fertilisation 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. 82). 



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 independent 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." 



We do not feel quite sure that we seize 

 Professor Kolliker's meaning here, but he appears 

 to suggest that the observation of the general order 

 and harmony which pervade inorganic nature, 

 would lead us to anticipate a similar order and 

 harmony in the organic world. And this is no 

 doubt true, but it by no means follows that the 

 particular order and harmony observed among 

 them should be that which we see. Surely the 



