II.] INCIPIENT STRUCTURES. • 35 



CHAPTER II. 



THE INCOMPETENCY OF " NATURAL. SELECTION " TO AC- 

 COUNT FOR THE INCIPIENT STAGES OF USEFUL STRUCT- 

 URES. 



Mr. Dnnvin siipposos (lint Natural SplocMon arts hy Rllirlit Variations. — TIicbo must bo 

 URofiil nt oiico. — I)ini("\iItloa a.s to tlio OiralTo; as toMimirry; a.s to tho Ilt'ads of 

 Flat-flshos; na to tlio <)rl>,'ln ami (^otiHtnnoy of llin Vorto!)mt(» LIriihs; as to Whalf- 

 boiip; as to flip Yo\iii(? Katiparoo; iw to 8oa-nrcliins; as to cortaln IVwcssos of 

 Metarnorpliosis ; as to the Mammary -plaud ; as to ccrtnin Apo Choractors ; as to 

 the Rattic'^nakc and Cobi-a; as to tho Process of Formation of thoEyo ami Ear, as 

 to the Fiilly-devcloped Condition of the Eye and Ear; as to tho Voice; as to Shell- 

 fish; as to Orchids; as to Antfl. — tho Necessity for tho Simultaneous Modification 

 of Many Individuals. — Summary and Conclusion. 



" Natural Selection," simply and by itself, is potent 

 to explain the maintenance or the further extension and 

 development of favorable variations, which are at once suf- 

 ficiently considerable to be useful from the first to the indi- 

 vidual possessing them. But Natural Selection utterly fails 

 to account for the conservation and development of the 

 minute and rudimentary beginnings, the slight and infini- 

 tesimal commencements of structures, however useful those 

 structures may afterward become. 



Now, it is distinctly enunciated by Mr. Darwin, that the 

 spontaneous variations upon which his theory depends are 

 individually slight, minute, and insensible. He says,* 

 " Slight individual differences, however, suffice for the > 

 work, and are proba})ly the sole differences which are effec- 

 tivc in the production of new species." And again, after 



* "Animals and Tlants under Domestication," vol. ii., p. 192 



