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VIII. 

 THE EVIDENCE FROM MISSING LINKS. 



WHEN the Darwinian theory of the origin of living species and 

 other theories of evolution were yet in their infancy, the subject- 

 matters of the present paper had attained notoriety, if not fame. 

 The early critics of the hypotheses of evolution were not slow 

 to fix upon " missing links " and their nature, their assumed 

 absence, and the impossibility of supplying them, as weapons of 

 satisfactory kind and lasting strength, against such ideas of the order 

 in which the living universe had been formed. Especially has the 

 phrase found favour in the eyes of critics of an unscientific cast of 

 mind those " old ladies of both sexes," to use Huxley's words, who 

 consider the "Origin of Species" "a decidedly dangerous book," 

 and who regard most contributions to the literature of evolution as 

 works of darkness in the most literal sense of the term. Persons 

 who would have been puzzled had they been asked to mention a 

 single example of a case where " missing links " were required, 

 nevertheless were found ready with much unction to declare that Mr. 

 Darwin could never be expected to fill the gaps in question ; and the 

 argument as against evolution, in the early days of which we are 

 speaking, was frequently supposed to be clenched with the trium- 

 phant query, " Where are the missing links?" A feature of Darwinism 

 and evolution, not to speak of natural history at large, so apparently 

 familiar as the subject before us, deserves some detailed examination. 

 It is not too much to say, that even with the lapse of years, and with 

 the better understanding by cultured persons at large of evolution, 

 its weaknesses and its strength, the nature of " missing links " is often 

 imperfectly understood. Apart from the necessity for some clear 

 understanding of what is demanded by the opponents of evolution, 

 and of what evolutionists and naturalists are able to present in reply 

 to these demands, the present topic may be said to have grown in 

 importance with the most recent discoveries in geological science. 

 Its true nature, and its attitude to the existing phases of evolution, 

 are therefore matters for careful inquiry; since their investigation 

 may powerfully aid the solution of the great problem which evolution 

 endeavours in one phase to solve the how and why of living Nature 

 and her ways. 



The widespread recognition, even in the popular mind, of the 

 importance of the discovery of " missing links " between existing 



