OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM 523 
descended from monkeys, and theologians gradually came to 
see that a plan in which the multitudinous forms are evolved 
is just as noble a conception of God as the ‘‘ Doctrine of Special 
Creation.” 
The scientists offered a number of objections, some of which 
later investigations have answered. They said that, if evolu- 
tion by natural selection is now in progress, one should be 
able to see one species forming from another, but such has never 
been observed. The absence of forms connecting two related 
species, and the presence of many apparently useless characters 
dmong both plants and animals they said were not accounted 
for. Again, according to geologists and astronomers, the world 
has not been in existence long enough for the present forms to 
be evolved by natural selection. The discovery of mutations 
enables us to answer the above objections as will be noted 
later. 
A number of questions in regard to his theory remain to be 
answered satisfactorily and are receiving much attention at 
the present time. 
First, as was stated under Lamarck’s explanation of evolu- 
tion, there is much evidence that acquired characters, that is, 
characters which an individual does not get from its parents 
but takes on during its lifetime, are seldom if at all inherited. 
This strikes at Darwin’s assumption that useful variations are 
finally established as characters through inheritance and selec- 
tion. 
Second, it is claimed that by the selection of slight variations 
new species cannot be formed. The individuals of a species 
can be changed, but they can never be changed so much as to 
form a new species. In support of this objection, it is claimed 
that through centuries of artificial selection, plant and animal 
breeders have not been able to produce new species. 
Third, although the theory assumes that variations are 
selected because of their advantage to the individual, it also 
assumes that useful variations may be built up through the 
selection of variations which are so slight at first that they 
give the individuals having them no advantage over individuals 
lacking them. Also the causes of variations Darwin left to his 
Successors to explain, and variations are still a subject of much 
investigation and discussion. 
