Origin of Species Variorum

for our profound ignorance on the mutual relations of the inhabitants of the world during the many past epochs in its history.

Various Objections considered.

I will here notice a few miscellaneous objections which have been advanced against my views, as some of the previous discussions may perhaps thus be made clearer; but it would be useless to discuss all of them, as they have been made by writers who have not taken the trouble to understand my views. Thus a distinguished German naturalist has recently asserted that the weakest part of my theory is, that I consider all organic beings as imperfect: what I have really said is, that all are not as perfect in relation to the conditions under which they live, as they might be; and this is shown to be the case by so many native forms yielding their places in many quarters of the world to intruding and naturalised foreigners. Nor can all organic beings, even if at any one time perfectly adapted to their conditions of life, remain so, when these conditions slowly change; and no one will dispute that the physical conditions of each country, as well as the number and kind of its inhabitants, are liable to change. Thus again, a French author, in opposition to the whole tenor of this volume, assumes that, according to my view, species undergo great and abrupt changes, and then he triumphantly asks how this is possible, seeing that such modified forms would be crossed by the many which have remained unchanged. No doubt the small changes or variations which do occur are incessantly checked and retarded by intercrossing; but the frequent existence of varieties in the same country with the parent species shows that crossing does not necessarily prevent their formation; and in the still more frequent cases of local