74 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [Chap. 



togellicr with certain otlicr ex('C})tioii5il nuules of develop- 

 ment, have been brought forward. The development of 

 color in certain apes, the hood of the cobra, and the rattle 

 of the rattlesnake, have also been cited. Again, dilliculties 

 as to the process of formation of the eye and car, and as to 

 the fully-developed condition of those comj)lex organs, as 

 well as of the voice, have been consideretl. The beauty of 

 certain shell-fish ; the wonderful adaptations of structure, and 

 variety of form and resemblance, found in orchids ; together 

 with the complex habits and social conditions of certain 

 ants, have been hastily passed in review. When all these 

 complications are duly 'weighed and considered, and when 

 it is borne in mind how necessary it is for the permanence 

 of a new variety that 'many individuals in each case should 

 be simultaneously modified, the cumulative argument seems 

 irresistible. 



The author of this book can say that, though by no 

 means disposed originally to dissent from the theory of 

 "Natural Selection," if only its difliculties could be solved, 

 he has found each successive year tliat deeper consideration 

 and more careful examination have more and more brouirht 

 home to him the inadequacy of Mr. Darwin's theory to ac- 

 count for the preservation and intensification of incipient, 

 specific, and generic characters. That minute, fortuitous, 

 and indefinite variations could have brought about^ such sp(;- 

 cial forms and modifications as have b(^en enumerateil in 

 this chapter, seems to contradict not imagination, but reason. 



That either many individuals among a spe(;ies of butt(.'r- 

 fly should be sinmltaneously j)reserved through a similar 

 accidental and niiiuite variation in one definite direction, 

 Avhen variations in many other directions would also pre- 

 serve ; or that one or two so varying shoidd succeed in sup- 

 planting the j)rogeny of thousands of other individuals, and 

 that this should by no other cause be carried so far as to 

 produce the appearance (as we have before stated) of spots 



