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THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



589 



?n. 



The 



some 



^itiici.:' 



lis ow 





\ 



'erse 



critii 



Herbert 



'^ ^octri, ' 



Spencet ^ 



?^nisms 



^D)' ijtft 



f 



:iation. Iti^ 



sridnotbeiaJ5T 

 of the 



I 



ev 



I 



a changing kit: 



f 



quite willing tot!' 

 of organizatioD c 



t, ^a lia 



id reactions 



bete 



r 



1 



) ' 



ivironments . ■ 



re may 



I 



' the average result ' being, <■ that on previous complica- 

 tions of structure wrought by previous incident forces 

 new complications are continually superposed by new 

 incident forces. And hence simultaneously arises in- 

 creasing heterogeneity in the structures of individuals, 

 in the structures of species, and in the structures of the 

 earth's Flora and Fauna ^/ But with this constant al- 

 ternation of changes of all kinds, to which every single 

 environment on the face of the earth must have been 

 subjected, is it to be deemed possible that the descend- 

 ants of simple and little differentiated organisms could 

 have reproduced their like, without any considerable 



t to accept the K: alteration, during an unbroken lineal descent through 



ntradictions wtic 



the millions and 



must 



elapsed since the first evolution of life upon our planet : 



? 



Mr 



the fact that occasionally ' new influences are escaped 

 by the survival of species in the unchanged parts of 

 their habitats, or by their spread into neighbouring 

 habitats which the change has rendered like their 



original habitats, or by both/ But, independently of 

 the impossibility of eluding the all-pervading influence 

 of some of the causes of change above cited, it 

 seems to me absolutely incredible that, through this 

 long lapse of ages, some of the lineal descendants of 



V 



many specific forms should have succeeded in 



so 



■^ This was also, in the main, the view advocated by Geoffroy St. Hi- 

 lan-e in his 'Etudes progressives d'un Naturaliste,' p. 107. See also 

 ' Mem. de I'Acad. des Sciences/ 1833. 



