Origin of Species Variorum

Comparison with 1866

between past and present species required on my theory; and this is the most obvious and forcible of the many objections which may be urged against it. ↑ Why, again, do whole groups of allied species appear, though certainly they often falsely appear, to have come in suddenly on the several geological stages? Although we now know that organic beings appeared on this globe, at a period incalculably remote, long before the lowest bed of the Silurian system was deposited, why do we not find beneath this system great piles of strata stored with the remains of the progenitors of the Silurian fossils? For certainly on my theory such strata must somewhere have been deposited at these ancient and utterly unknown epochs in the world's history.

I can answer these question and grave objections only on the supposition that the geological record is far more imperfect than most geologists believe. It cannot be objected that there has not been time sufficient for any amount of organic change; for the lapse of time has been so great as to be utterly inappreciable by the human intellect. The number of specimens in all our museums is absolutely as nothing compared with the countless generations of countless species which certainly have existed. The parent-form of any two or more species would not be in all its characters directly intermediate between its modified offspring, any more than the rock-pigeon is directly intermediate in crop and tail between its descendants the pouter and fantail pigeons. We should not be able to recognise a species as the parent of any one or more species if we were to examine them ever so closely, unless we likewise possessed many of the intermediate links between their past or parent and present states; and these many links we could hardly ever expect to discover, owing to the imperfection of the geological record. If two or three, or even more linking forms were discovered, they would simply be ranked as so many new species, more especially if found in different geological sub-stages, let their differences be ever so

between past and present species required on my theory; and this is the most obvious and forcible of the many objections which may be urged against it. ↑ Why, again, do whole groups of allied species appear, though certainly they often falsely appear, to have come in suddenly on the several geological stages? Why do we not find great piles of strata beneath the Silurian system, stored with the remains of the progenitors of the Silurian groups of fossils? For .. on my theory such strata must somewhere have been deposited at these ancient and utterly unknown epochs in the world's history.

I can answer these questions and .. objections only on the supposition that the geological record is far more imperfect than most geologists believe. It cannot be objected that there has not been time sufficient for any amount of organic change; for the lapse of time has been so great as to be utterly inappreciable by the human intellect. The number of specimens in all our museums is absolutely as nothing compared with the countless generations of countless species which certainly have existed. The parent form of any two or more species would not be in all its characters directly intermediate between its modified offspring, any more than the rock-pigeon is directly intermediate in crop and tail between its descendants the pouter and fantail pigeons. We should not be able to recognise a species as the parent of another species if we were to examine both ever so closely, unless we likewise possessed many of the intermediate links between their past and present states; and these many links we could hardly ever expect to discover, owing to the imperfection of the geological record. If two or three, or even more linking forms were discovered, they would simply be ranked as so many new species, more especially if found in different geological sub-stages, let their differences be ever so