168 MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS TO THE TChaf. VII 



CHAPTEE VII. 



Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural 

 Selection. 



Longevity — Modifications not necessarily simultaneous — Modifications 

 apparently of no direct service — Progressive development — Characters 

 of small functional importance, the most constant — Supposed incom- 

 petence of natural selection to account for the incipient stages of 

 useful structures — Causes which interfere with the acquisition through 

 natural selection of useful structures — Gradations of structure with 

 changed functions — Widely different organs in members of the same 

 class, developed from one and the same source — Reasons for disbeliev- 

 ing in great and abrupt modifications. 



I will devote this chapter to the consideration of various mis- 

 cellaneous objections which have been advanced against my views, 

 as some of the previous discussions may thus be made clearer ; but 

 it would be useless to discuss all of them, as many have been made 

 by writers who have not taken the trouble to understand the 

 subject. Thus a distinguished German naturalist has asserted that 

 the weakest part of my theory is, that I consider all organic beings 

 as imperfect : what I have really said is, that all are not as perfect 

 as they might have been in relation to their conditions ; and this is 

 shown to be the case by so many native forms in many quarters of 

 the world having yielded their places to intruding foreigners. Nor 

 can organic beings, even if they were at any one time perfectly 

 adapted to their conditions of life, have remained so, when their 

 conditions changed, unless they themselves likewise changed ; and 

 no one will dispute that the physical conditions of each country, as 

 well as the numbers and kinds of its inhabitants, have undergone 

 many mutations. 



A critic has lately insisted, with some parade of mathematical 

 accuracy, that longevity is a great advantage to all species, so that 

 he who believes in natural selection " must arrange his genealogical 

 tree " in such a manner that all the descendants have longer lives 

 than their progenitors ! Cannot our critic conceive that a biennial 

 plant or one of the lower animals might range into a cold climate 

 and per'sh there every winter ; and yet, owing to advantages 



