In spite of all the resources of a fertile imagination, the Darwinian, pure and simple, is reduced to the assertion of a paradox as great as any he opposes. In the place of a mere assertion of our ignorance as to the way these phenomena have been produced, he brings forward, as their explanation, a cause which it is contended in this work is demonstrably insufficient.
Of course in this matter, as elsewhere throughout nature, we have to do with the operation of fixed and constant natural laws, and the knowledge of these may before long be obtained by human patience or human genius; but there is, it is believed, already enough evidence to show that these as yet unknown natural laws or law will never be resolved into the action of "Natural Selection," but will constitute or exemplify a mode and condition of organic action of which the Darwinian theory takes no account whatsoever.
CHAPTER III.
THE CO-EXISTENCE OF CLOSELY SIMILAR STRUCTURES OF DIVERSE ORIGIN.
Chances against concordant variations.—Examples of discordant ones.—Concordant variations not unlikely on a non-Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis.—Placental and implacental mammals.—Birds and reptiles.—Independent origins of similar sense organs.—The ear.—The eye.—Other coincidences.—Causes besides Natural Selection produce concordant variations in certain geographical regions.—Causes besides Natural Selection produce concordant variations in certain zoological and botanical groups.—There are homologous parts not genetically related.—Harmony in respect of the organic and inorganic worlds.—Summary and conclusion.
The theory of "Natural Selection" supposes that the varied forms and structure of animals and plants have been built up merely by indefinite, fortuitous,[[49]] minute variations in every part and in all directions—those variations only being preserved which are directly or indirectly useful to the individual possessing them, or necessarily correlated with such useful variations.
On this theory the chances are almost infinitely great against the independent, accidental occurrence and preservation of two similar series of minute variations resulting in the independent development of two closely similar forms. In all cases, no doubt (on this same theory), some adaptation to habit or need