Origin of Species Variorum

Comparison with 1869

those which have become extinct, I can see no very great ... in believing that natural selection has converted the simple apparatus of an optic nerve merely coated with pigment and invested by transparent membrane, into an optical instrument as perfect as is possessed by any member of the great Articulate class.

He who will go thus far, ought not to hesitate to go one step further, if he finds on finishing this treatise that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained by the theory of descent with modification; he ought to admit that a structure even as perfect as ... an eagles eye might be formed by natural selection, although in this case he does not know any of the transitional states. It has been objected that in order to modify the eye and still preserve it as a perfect instrument, many changes would have to be effected simultaneously, which, it is assumed, could not be done through natural selection; but as I have attempted to show in my work on the variation of domestic animals, it is not necessary to suppose that all the modifications were simultaneous, if they were extremely slight and gradual. ↑ Even in the ... most highly organised division of the animal kingdom, namely the Vertebrata, we can start ... from an eye so simple, that it consists, as in the lancelet, of a little .. sack of transparent skin, furnished with a nerve and lined with pigment, but destitute of any other apparatus. .. .. .. .. .. .. In both fishes and reptiles, as Owen has remarked, "the range of gradations of dioptric structures is very great." It is a significant fact that even in man, according to the high authority of Virchow, the beautiful crystalline lens is .. formed in the embryo by an accumulation of epidermic cells, lying in a sack-like fold of the skin; and the vitreous body is formed from embryonic sub-cutaneous tissue. It is indeed indispensable, in order to arrive at a just conclusion regarding the formation of the eye, with all its marvellously perfect characters, that the reason should conquer the imagination; but

those which have become extinct, the difficulty ceases to be very great (not more so than in the case of many other structures) in believing that natural selection may have converted the simple apparatus of an optic nerve, .. coated with pigment and invested by transparent membrane, into an optical instrument as perfect as is possessed by any member of the great Articulate Class.

He who will go thus far, if he should find on finishing this volume that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained by the theory of descent with modification, ought not to hesitate to go further, and to admit that a structure even as perfect as the eye of an eagle might have been formed by natural selection, although in this case he does not know .. the transitional steps. ↑ Even in the Vertebrata, so manifestly the most highly organized division of the animal kingdom, we can start, as in the former cases, from an eye, such as exists in the fish called the lancelet, which is so simple that it consists only of a little fold-like sack of skin, lined with pigment and furnished with a nerve, but destitute of any other apparatus, being merely covered by transparent membrane. In the class both of fishes and reptiles, as Owen has remarked, "the range of gradations of dioptric structures is very great." It is a significant fact that even in man, according to the high authority of Virchow, the beautiful crystalline lens is originally formed merely by an accumulation of cells of the epidermis, lying in a sack-like fold of the skin; and the vitreous body is formed from embryonic sub-cutaneous tissue. It is indeed indispensable that the naturalist who reflects on the origin and manner of formation of the eye, with all its marvellously perfect attributes, should make his reason conquer his imagina- tion; though