ON THE DIRECTIVITY OP LIFE. 



253 



a new species. When Aralns anchoretica was grown at Kew, 

 the seeds having been gathered from plants growing in crevices 

 in high alpine rocks, and cultivated in the Kew Gardens, they 

 became A. alpina. 



There is, of course, nothing new in calling attention to 

 purposeful structures ; for such has been the theme of all 

 natural theologians, whether it be Paley or Darwin. But the 

 question is how have they come about ? Paley drew an analogy 

 between man's designing and God's designing, as in the w^ell- 

 known argument about the watch. 



As long as comparatively few animals and plants, whether 

 living or extinct, were known, they seemed to be very distinct ; 

 so that even Sedgwick argued against Evolution because in his 

 day the several strata seemed to reveal distinct series of fossils. 

 This led him to believe in a succession of separate creative 

 acts. 



The progress of research has revealed many groups of 

 transitional forms, both in fossil animals and plants, often with 

 almost insensible gradations, especially among living species. 

 Thus Mr. G. Bentham tells us that in preparing the Genera 

 Plantctrum he could find no well-marked differences between 

 any of the ninety genera of Asteroidece, a tribe of the CompositcG ; 

 and every genus has one or more species. It is on such 

 induction as this that Evolution is strongly supported, while 

 Darwin argued upon the data supplied by Domesticated Plants 

 and Animals. 



Besides his theory of natural selection, upon which 

 Darwin laid most stress, as the chief means by which Evolution 

 or the Origin of Species was supposed to have been 

 worked out in nature, he gave us an alternative solution, 

 barely hinted at in the first edition, but much more strongly 

 emphasized in the sixth and last. He said that the " direct 

 action of the changed conditions of life " leads to " definite " 

 or " indefinite " results, and adds " by the term ' definite ' 

 action I mean an action of such a nature that when many 

 individuals of the same variety are exposed during several 

 generations to any change in their physical conditions of life, 

 all, or nearly all, the individuals are modified in the same 

 manner. A new sub-variety would thus be produced luithout 

 the aid of selection." 



This change of view with regard to the source of Evolution 

 was first introduced into his Variation of Animals and Plants 

 under Domestication, IT, pp. 271 ff., and subsequently into the 

 sixth edition of the Origin, etc. As an example we read in the 



