"THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 329 



mary and direct evidence in favour of evolution can be 

 furnished only by palaeontology. The geological record, 

 so soon as it approaches completeness, must, when prop- 

 erly questioned, yield either an affirmative or a negative 

 answer : if evolution has taken place, there will its mark 

 be left ; if it has not taken place, there will lie its refu- 

 tation. 



What was the state of matters in 1859 ? Let us hear 

 Mr. Darwin, who may be trusted always to state the case 

 against himself as strongly as possible. 



" On this doctrine of the extermination of an infini- 

 tude of connecting links between the living and extinct 

 inhabitants of the world, and at each successive period 

 between the extinct and still older species, why is not 

 every geological formation charged with such links? 

 Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford 

 plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the 

 forms of life? We meet with no such evidence, and 

 this is the most obvious and plausible of the many ob- 

 jections which may be urged against my theory."* 



Nothing could have been more useful to the oppo- 

 sition than this characteristically candid avowal, twisted 

 as it immediately was into an admission that the writer's 

 views were contradicted by the facts of palaeontology. 

 But, in fact, Mr. Darwin made no such admission. What 

 he says in effect is, not that palaeontological evidence is 

 against him, but that it is not distinctly in his favour ; 

 and, without attempting to attenuate the fact, he ac- 



* " Origin of Species," ed. 1, p. 463. 



