REVIEWS. 
67 
of Natural Selection ; but a passage further on in the same letter places the 
matter beyond all doubt ; in it Professor Owen speaks of himself as 11 the 
author of the same theory (Darwinian) at the earlier date of 1850.” Clearly, 
whatever be Professor Owen’s opinion as to the expediency of admitting 
the new theory, he at all events desires it to be thought that he anti- 
cipated Mr. Darwin in suggesting the basis of the Darwinian doctrine. 
Still it is tolerably clear, as Mr. Darwin has shown, that at the very time 
when Professor Owen alleges that he first suggested the essential principle 
of the theory of Natural Selection, he really denied that principle in the 
most unequivocal manner. The Professor states that he first gave the 
scientific world the idea in a paper read before the Zoological Society in 
1850 ; but the following quotation from this memoir proves that Professor 
Owen at the time he put the theory forward (P) failed to understand its 
very essence. In this paper he said, u We have not a particle of evidence 
that any species of bird or beast that lived during the pliocene period has 
had its characters modified in any respect by the influence of time or of 
change of external circumstances.” 
It may be gathered, therefore, from the foregoing passage that the most 
formidable if not the only serious opponent of the Darwinian theory now 
wavers between the old and the new hypotheses. This circumstance seems 
to us of importance, because it shows that nearly all those who are capable 
of forming an opinion upon the subject side with Mr. Darwin. 
As to the argument in support of the Darwinian hypothesis, there is 
little to be said that has not already in various forms been laid before 
our readers. The great principles on which the doctrine is based 
are, the tendency of what are called species to vary, and the tendency 
of external conditions to destroy all those individuals which have 
not sufficient natural protection. Thus, let us say that in any litter of 
animals there are certain individuals provided by the law of variation with 
appendages, offensive or defensive, which adapt them to the climate in which 
they live, or serve to give them more protection from the attacks of animals 
which prey on them, than is afforded to their fellows : it is clear that those 
individuals will in the ordinary struggle for existence, which every organism 
must go through, have a greater chance of protection, and hence of perpetua- 
tion, than their brethren. Thus, the stronger individuals — or, in other words, 
those best adapted to the conditions under which all are situ&ted — live : and 
so with their successors : those of them possessing the parental characters of 
adaptation in the highest degree will crush their fellows to the wall and 
survive them : and thus an insignificant anatomical feature may become in 
ages a very important one, and species having different characters from those 
of the fortunate race become swept away or destroyed. The reader, how- 
ever, will naturally raise this objection, Why do we not find intermediate 
forms P This is certainly a very difficult question to reply to, but still it 
can in part be answered. It may, for example, be urged that Geology affords 
us to some extent a series of connecting links of great value ; and more than 
this cannot be expected, for every geologist must admit that never-ceasing 
denudation has annihilated the Geologic Record. Again: the period of 
time required for the transition from one specific form to another is so great 
as to render it quite intelligible why the connecting links exhibit themselves 
YOL. VI. — NO. XXII. Gf 
