46 Canadian Record of Science. 



be operative along useful lines. Naegeli's criticism was 

 that the acquisition of characters, without any apparent 

 usefulness in waging the warfare for existence, created a 

 difficulty in the way of accepting the theory of natural 

 selection. He thought the teleological argument, namely, 

 that the plant was striving after perfection, was better 

 supported by the facts pointed out. Mivart held that 

 variations were definite, and often sudden and consider- 

 able, which made against the theory of imperceptibly 

 slow variability and development from it. Others 

 pointed out that natural selection trusts to the chapter of 

 accidents in the matter of varieties, and asked how we 

 get the variations without which natural selection would 

 have nothing on which to operate, the survival of the 

 variations being a matter really only secondary to their 

 origin. It was pointed out that many plants of wide 

 range and great diversity of experience remain uniform 

 in character. Then similar modifications are seen suddenly 

 to occur under different conditions, while, on the other 

 hand, different modifications are found under similar 

 conditions. Even Huxley, who was one of Darwin's 

 warmest supporters, made the admission that nature " does 

 make considerable jumps in the way of variation now and 

 then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the 

 gaps which appear to exist in the series of known forms." 

 George J. Romanes, in criticising Darwin's main position, 

 laid stress on the difference between species and varieties, 

 in respect of mutual fertility, and he held that this fact 

 made against the probability of any variety prevailing 

 over an existing species. He held that in the process of 

 free crossing the individual variety would be surely 

 swamped. He also dwelt on the inutility to species of a 

 large proportion of specific distinctions. His general 

 conclusion from the facts presented by Darwin was that 

 it was an accumulation of adaptations, not new species, 

 that resulted from the struggle of existence. Herbert 



