DARWIN AND PALEONTOLOGY 225 



of logic but of fact. Does paleontology sup- 

 port this focal hypothesis of fortuity or absence 

 of direction in the minute variations leading to 

 adaptation, or does it destroy it? 



The answer is in no uncertain sound. While 

 fortifying all the outworks, paleontology under- 

 mines the hypothesis of adaptation through the 

 selection of the directed from the variations with- 

 out direction by eliminating the occurrence of the 

 variations without direction in many important 

 organs. Fortuitous variations as material for 

 advance should certainly be found, if anywhere, 

 in closely successive phyletic series ; they have not 

 been found. At the same time this evidence 

 does not leave a vacuum, but replaces the law 

 of chance by another law, namely, that as in the 

 domain of inorganic nature, so in the domain of 

 organic nature fortuity is wanting, and the fit 

 originates in many hard parts of the body 

 through laws which are in the main similar to 

 growth, — laws the modes of which we see and 

 measure, the causes of which we do not and may 

 never understand, but nevertheless laws and not 

 fortuities or chance happenings. 



Now let us inquire how it comes that paleon- 

 tologists, far in advance of other biologists, have 

 reached this profoundly important principle as 

 to the origin of certain new characters. 



The paleontologist observes origins. Having 

 already disclaimed certain powers for paleontol- 

 ogy as regards evidence on the evolution factors. 



