260 



REV. PROF. G. HENSLOW^ M.A., F.L.S.^ 



entirely to disprove the statement that " Response to the conditions 

 of Life " is, or ever has been, a sufficient cause for the origin of the 

 innumerable species in Nature. 



Page 253, paragraph 4. Professor Henslow says that "it is on 

 such induction as this " (that the ninety genera of Asteroidese show 

 no well-marked differences) " that Evolution is strongly supported." 

 I would submit that the mere fact that many forms or species 

 closely approximate to one another is no evidence whatever of 

 Evolution, unless we can, by experiment, observe these forms or 

 species passing one into the other and always with an advance from a 

 lower to a higher organism. 



Page 254, paragraph 5. Professor Henslow is here arguing that 

 Adaptation to environment, or Modification resulting therefrom— iu 

 other words. Self-adaptation — is " true Darwinism," and sufficiently 

 accounts for the origin of species. As I have already indicated, I 

 believe there is no evidence of any existing species or sufficiently 

 well-defined and " permanent " variation being thus produced. Even 

 if " Self-adaptation " could be proved in some isolated instances to 

 have caused the appearance of new forms or distinct species, it 

 could not possibly account for the origin of such diverse forms as 

 the oak tree, the beech tree, the apple or pear tree, the palm tree, 

 or the tamarisk. For what evidence, or even reasonable inference 

 or deduction, is there to indicate that any amount of changed 

 environment, or " finding themselves in some different kind of 

 surroundings," could have produced any one of these from the 

 other If the Professor wishes us to believe that it is the power 

 of Directivity, which he assumes that the life in the protoplasm 

 possesses (see p. 251, line 25), which has, without any outside 

 direction, produced such extremely diverse forms of tree life, and in 

 an equal manner innumerable forms of plant, animal and marine 

 life, I can only say that to my mind this is pure assumption based 

 on totally insufficient " coincidences," and unsupported by any 

 possible experiments. 



Page 255, conclusion 4. Science does not admit that the 

 characters acquired in response to changed environment " are mostly 

 permanent." This can only be maintained by the assumption that 

 plants now found growing under widely different conditions in 

 various parts of the world, and which are distinct, though in some 

 respects resembling each other, had a common origin, and that their 



