CHAPTER XXII.
OBJECTIONS TO THE HYPOTHESIS OF TRANSMUTATION CONSIDERED.
STATEMENT OF OBJECTIONS TO THE HYPOTHESIS OF TRANSMUTATION FOUNDED ON THE ABSENCE OF INTERMEDIATE FORMS—GENERA OF WHICH THE SPECIES ARE CLOSELY ALLIED—OCCASIONAL DISCOVERY OF THE MISSING LINKS IN A FOSSIL STATE—DAVIDSON'S MONOGRAPH ON THE BRACHIOPODA—WHY THE GRADATIONAL FORMS, WHEN FOUND, ARE NOT ACCEPTED AS EVIDENCE OF TRANSMUTATION—GAPS CAUSED BY EXTINCTION OF RACES AND SPECIES—VAST TERTIARY PERIODS DURING WHICH THIS EXTINCTION HAS BEEN GOING ON IN THE FAUNA AND FLORA NOW EXISTING—GENEALOGICAL BOND BETWEEN MIOCENE AND RECENT PLANTS AND INSECTS—FOSSILS OF OENINGHEN—SPECIES OF INSECTS IN BRITAIN AND NORTH AMERICA REPRESENTED BY DISTINCT VARIETIES—FALCONER'S MONOGRAPH ON LIVING AND FOSSIL ELEPHANTS—FOSSIL SPECIES AND GENERA OF THE HORSE TRIBE IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA—RELATION OF THE PLIOCENE MAMMALIA OF NORTH AMERICA, ASIA, AND EUROPE—SPECIES OF MAMMALIA, THOUGH LESS PERSISTENT THAN THE MOLLUSCA, CHANGE SLOWLY—ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST TRANSMUTATION DERIVED FROM THE ABSENCE OF MAMMALIA IN ISLANDS—IMPERFECTION OF THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD—INTERCALATION OF NEWLY DISCOVERED FORMATION OF INTERMEDIATE AGE IN THE CHRONOLOGICAL SERIES—REFERENCE OF THE ST. CASSIAN BEDS TO THE TRIASSIC PERIODS—DISCOVERY OF NEW ORGANIC TYPES—FEATHERED ARCHEOPTERYX OF THE OOLITE.
Theory of Transmutation—Absence of Intermediate Links.
THE most obvious and popular of the objections urged against the theory of transmutation may be thus expressed: If the extinct species of plants and animals of the later geological periods were the progenitors of the living species, and gave origin to them by variation and natural selection, where are all the intermediate forms, fossil and living, through which the lost types must have passed during their conversion into the living ones? And why do we not find almost everywhere passages between the nearest allied
