CHAPTER V. 



The Fallacies of Darwin's Argument from Natural 

 Selection. 



It is possible, without, in the least, questioning the 

 potential efficiency of Natural Selection, to show that 

 Darwin's argument from Natural Selection begs the 

 whole question at issue. For it gratuitously assumes 

 that the variations (which Darwin would have Natural 

 Selection to preserve and accumulate to an indefinite 

 or unlimited extent) are not restricted to the number 

 and kind which the varying species once lost. 



Darwin says, that the higher species have been 

 evolved from the lower, by means of the preservation 

 and accumulation of slight, successive increments of 

 development, and by means of the preservation and 

 accumulation of those marked variations which are 

 assumed to spring up mysteriously, under nature, 

 " once in the course of thousands of generations." 



The reader will perceive that there are thus two 

 ways in which Darwin gets the units of development 

 which, he purports to prove, are accumulated in- 

 definitely, or without limit. 



The one mode is by attempting, by argument, to prove 

 that slight advances in development necessarily result 

 from Natural Selection. Under nature, there has been 

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