5 1 2 Studies in the Theory of Descent. 



Against the latter half of this argument there 

 can at most be raised but the one objection that 

 the phenomena of transformation are not com- 

 pletely represented by the cases here analysed. 

 In so far as this signifies that the whole organic 

 world, animal and vegetable, has not been com- 

 prised within the investigation this objection is 

 quite valid. The question may be raised as to the 

 limit to which we may venture to extend the re- 

 sults obtained from one small group of forms. 

 I shall return to this question in the last essay. 



But if by this objection it is meant that the 

 restricted field of the investigation enables us to 

 actually analyse only a portion of the occurring 

 transformations, 3 and indeed only those cases, the 

 dependence of which upon the external conditions 

 of life would be generally admitted, I will not 

 let pass the opportunity of once more pointing out 

 at the conclusion of the present essay that the 

 incongruences shown to exist by no means de- 

 pend only upon those more superficial characters 

 the remodelling of which in accordance with the 

 external conditions of life may be most easily dis- 

 cerned and is most difficult to deny, but that in 

 certain cases (maggot-like Dipterous larvae) it is 



' [It must be understood that the word rendered here and 

 elsewhere throughout this work as " transformation " is not 

 to be taken in the narrow sense of metamorphosis, but as 

 having the much broader meaning of a change of any kind 

 incurred by an organism. Metamorphosis is in fact but one 

 phase of transformation. R.M.] 



