184 Luck, or Cunning? 
either of the two first editions, we read (p. 359), “ So that 
here again we have undoubted evidence of change in the 
direction required by my theory.” ‘‘ My theory” became 
“the theory” in 1869; the theory of descent with modifi- 
cation is unquestionably intended. 
Again :— 
“ Geological research has done scarcely anything 
in breaking down the distinction between species, by 
connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate 
varieties ; and this not having been effected, is probably 
the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections 
which may be urged against my views ’’ (p. 299). 
We naturally took “my views” to mean descent with 
modification. The “ my ’’ has been allowed to stand. 
Again :— 
“ Tf, then, there be some degree of truth in these remarks, 
we have no right to expect to find in our geological forma- 
tions an infinite number of those transitional forms which 
on my theory assuredly have connected all the past and 
present species of the same group in one long and branching 
chain of life. . . . But I do not pretend that I should ever 
have suspected how poor was the record in the best pre- 
served geological sections, had not the absence of innumer- 
able transitional links between the species which lived at 
the commencement and at the close of each formation 
pressed so hardly on my theory’ (pp. 301, 302). 
Substitute ‘‘descent with modification’ for “ my 
theory’ and the meaning does not suffer. The first of 
the two ‘“‘ my theories’’ in the passage last quoted was 
altered in 1869 into “ our theory ;”’ the second has been 
allowed to stand. & 
Again :— it 
“The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species: 
suddenly appear in some formations, has been urged by 
several palzontologists ... as a fatal objection to the 
belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, 
