Origin of Species Variorum

.. it stands in some degree intermediate between groups now distinct; for the more ancient a form is, the more nearly it will be related to, and consequently resemble, the common progenitor of groups, since become widely divergent. Extinct forms are seldom directly intermediate between existing forms; but are intermediate only by a long and circuitous course through other extinct and different forms. We can clearly see why the organic remains of closely consecutive formations are .. closely allied; ... for they .. are .. closely linked together by generation. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

The inhabitants of each successive period in the worlds history must have beaten their predecessors in the race for life, and are, in so far, higher in the scale of nature, and their structure has generally become more specialised; and this may account for the common belief held by so many palæontologists, that organisation on the whole has progressed. Extinct and ancient animals resemble to a certain extent the embryos of the more recent animals belonging to the same classes, and this wonderful fact receives a simple explanation according to our views. The succession of the same types of structure within the same areas during the later geological periods ceases to be mysterious, and is intelligible on the principle of inheritance. ↑

If then the geological record be as imperfect as many believe, ... and it may at least be asserted that the record cannot be proved to be much more perfect, the main objections to the theory of natural selection are greatly diminished or disappear. On the other hand, all the chief laws of palæontology plainly proclaim, as it seems to me, that species have been produced by ordinary generation: old forms having been supplanted by new and improved forms of life, the products of Variation and the Survival of the Fittest.