THEORIES OP NATURAL SELECTION AXD DF-'.-StUX. i'i 



influence is to fail in our duty as observers, to whom the 

 thoughts which underhe things should always l^e more 

 important than the things themselves. 



We have sought in vain for proofs of the influence of 

 natural selection in realising the fitnesses between the parts of 

 organisms, in departments in which everything might be held 

 likely to encourage its action. But the adaptations which have 

 been most frequently referred to, both by the biologist and the 

 student of the religion of nature, as evidences of intelligence, 

 occur in the higher ranks of animals. The field is unusually 

 rich, and has been but little worked, notwithstanding the 

 literature which has gathered round it. Observation has been 

 mainly devoted to the consideration of the relations between 

 organs and parts of organs, or between structure and habits. 

 Less has been made of the modifications of organs in con- 

 nexion with, or in order to, the same function. Take, for 

 example any one of the parts of the labyrinth of the ear, as, 

 say, the cochlea,. In monotremes this is half a coil ; in 

 ruminants, two and a half coils ; in carnivora, three coils ; 

 and, in rodents, four coils. In approaching facts like these, 

 the advocates of natural selection as an adaptive factor, take 

 refuge in an appeal to the geological record, presumably on 

 the ground that this would give ample time for the action of 

 the differentiating force. But the appeal is one-sided and 

 partial. In the study of geology, "^no powers,'^ said Hutton, 

 " ai'e to be employed that are not natural to the globe; no 

 actions are to be admitted except those of which we know the 

 principle." The agencies of which present phenomena are 

 the expression supply the key to the phenomena of the past. 

 " Organisms have arisen by insensible steps, through actions 

 which we see habitually going on " (Spencer). No worker 

 will quarrel with the principle referred to in these quotations, 

 because its recognition does not imply that uo causes are 

 operative except physical. But the bearings of the principle 

 are much wider than those who so often refer to it are willing 

 to admit. It includes the facts of the present as well as its 

 forces. And it is a fact beyond question that we have no 

 proof in the present that natural selection has originated one 

 species, or realised, unguided, one series of adaptations, or 

 even one instance of continued adaptation. The facts of the 

 present thus become as " the lantern in the stern ; they shed 

 light on the waves behind." If the great ages of human 

 history supply not one reliable instance of transformism, or of 

 new natural adaptations become permanent, Ave are entitled, in 

 accepting the principle now before us, to ask that these facts 

 shall have due weight when we deal with the past. We 



