490 



ORIGIN AND DISTEIBUTION OF MAN 



[Ch. XLIII. 



reluctance to admit the fact."^ But he denies that sufficient 

 evidence in support of such a theory has yet been adduced. 

 The introduction, he admits, of new species ' to take the place 

 of those which have passed away, is a work which has been 

 not only so often but so continuously repeated that it does 

 suggest the idea of having been brought about through the 

 instrumentality of some natural process.'f This process or 

 ' the adaptation of forces which can compass the required 

 modifications in animal structure in exact proportion to the 

 need of them, is in the nature of creation.' But Mr. Darwin 

 he says, does not pretend to explain how new forms first ap- 

 pear, but only how when they have appeared they acquire a 

 preference over others. Mr. Darwin frankly confesses that 

 our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound : yet, says 

 the Duke, he seems sometimes to forget this and to speak of 

 Natural Selection as if it could account for the orioin of 

 species, whereas, according to his own definition, it ' can do 

 nothing except with the materials presented to its hands. 

 It cannot select except among things open to selection. It 

 can originate nothing; it can only pick out and choose 

 among the things which are originated by some other law.'J 

 To speak therefore of Natural Selection as 'producing' 

 certain mo'difications of structure or new organs, and as 



them 



ascribe to it results which it can- 



not bring about, and ' the cause of which we cannot even 

 guess at.'§ 



To me it appears that these criticisms are fairly applicable 

 to those passages in Mr. Darwin's ' Origin of Species,' in 



Natural 



about 



any amount of change in the organs of an animal 

 provided a series of minute transitional steps can be pointed 

 out by which the transmutation may have been effected. 

 Thus, for example, if some one of the invertebrate animals 

 has a membrane or tissue without a single nerve, yet sensi- 

 tive to light, while another creature such as 



an eagle is 



furnished with a perfect eje in which there is an apparatus 



for 



concentratinof the lumino 



^ Eeign of Law, p. 227. 



t Ibid. p. 228. 



J rajSj and for refracting 



} Eeign of Law, p. 230. 

 § Ibid. p. 251-. 



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