SERIAL ORGANIC EVOLUTION 245 



In view of the character of evolution — in view 

 of the extraordinarily complex nature of its final 

 products — we find it difficult to believe that varia- 

 tion offered many alternatives to selection, or that 

 selection had much to do with the essential 

 characters of the species evolved, and certainly we 

 find it almost impossible to believe that all the 

 species from amoeba to man were produced by 

 environment acting upon variation. 



Why, after all, should there be such a desire to 

 trace all organisms, animal and vegetable, to a 

 single organic prototype ? Go back to the begin- 

 ning ! When the corpuscles ran together they 

 probably formed various atoms ; when the atoms 

 ran together into inorganic molecules, the molecules 

 were varied in their composition and potentialities ; 

 and there seems little reason to believe that Nature 

 showed more lack of imagination and versatility 

 when she proceeded to produce organic life. 



The assumption made by almost all biologists, 

 that the first form of life resembled the simplest 

 form of life now known {i.e. was a minute mass of 

 naked protoplasm, capable of assimilation, growth, 

 and reproduction), and that by the interplay of vari- 

 tion and environment there sprang from this all 

 the flora and fauna of the world, is so audacious 

 as to capture at once the reason and the imagina- 

 tion ; but, we ask again, is the assumption sound. 



