98 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



the transitional forms in large numbers ought, as e\ 

 lutionists admit, to have been expected there. 



The overwhelming testimony of the fossils is th 

 transitional forms are absent, — and this, where t] 

 fossils are abundant and well-preserved. 



It must, therefore, be assumed that the 100 speci 

 originated elsewhere, and that they migrated into t 

 region where they are found. 



This theory of origin elsewhere than where speci 

 are actually found, if applied as strictly as evolutio 

 ists are accustomed to apply it, will transfer the orig 

 of species to some other world. 



We are told repeatedly, when we look at the gre 

 number of species imbedded in a formation, that th 

 have not originated there, but elsewhere, and th 

 they are immigrants. So much is this explanatii 

 repeated that it is made to account for the presen 

 of every species in every stratum known in the eart 

 until there is no place left for species to originate. 



It should be remembered that, according to evol 

 tion, every individual of every species is a transition 

 form, and that, consequently, the origin of species 

 taking place continually wherever organisms a 

 found, and that, therefore, we ought to expect abun 

 ant evidence of these transitions, especially in su< 

 formations as the fresh-water Tertiary to which 1 

 Conte refers. 



I am not urging simply, in a general way, the a 

 sence of intermediate fossil forms against the theo 

 of evolution, but urging it in special cases where fo 

 sils are abundant and well-preserved and the recoi 

 seemingly continuous. 



Le Conte attempts to account for the absence i 

 transitional forms by supposing " that the steps 

 evolution are not always uniform.'" * 



* Evolution, etc., p. 239. 



