228 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



multitude of natural Forces must be concerned 

 in their production, and what complicated adjust- 

 ments of these amongst each other for the accom- 

 plishment of Purpose. It is purely, therefore, in 

 my view, a question of evidence, whether this 

 particular law of adaptation has or has not been 

 the means of introducing new Forms of Life. 

 There is no evidence that it has. So far as we 

 know, this power of self-adaptation, wonderful 

 as it is, has a comparatively limited application ; 

 when that limit is outrun by changes in outward 

 conditions, which are too great or too rapid, whole 

 Species die and disappear. Nevertheless, the in- 

 troduction 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. But we may say with con- 

 fidence, that it must have been a process different 

 from any that we yet know — a process not the 

 same as that, obscure as this is, which produces 

 the lesser modifications of Organic Forms. 



It has not, I think, been sufficiently observed, 



