Origin of Species Variorum

Comparison with 1866

Text in this page (from paragraph 3200, sentence 140, word 11 to paragraph 3200, sentence 300, word 46) is not present in 1866

With these facts, here given too briefly and imperfectly, with respect to the wide, diversified, and graduated range of structure in the eyes of the existing Articulata; and when we bear in mind how small the number of living animals is in proportion to those which have become extinct, I can see no very great (not more so than in the case of many other structures) 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, if he should find on finishing this treatise 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 any of the transitional steps.

Text in this page (from paragraph 3300, sentence 101 to paragraph 3300, sentence 104, word 63) is not present in 1866

that Müller formerly made three main classes with ... seven subdivisions, besides a fourth main class of aggregated simple eyes. ↑ When we reflect on these facts, here given much too briefly, with respect to the wide, diversified, and graduated range of structure in the eyes of the lower animals; and when we bear in mind how small the number of all living forms must be in comparison with those which have become extinct, the difficulty ceases to be very great ... 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 .. Articulate Class.

He who will go thus far, ought not to hesitate to go one step further, if he finds on finishing this volume that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained by the theory of modification through natural selection; he ought to admit that a structure even as perfect as ... an eagle's eye might thus be formed, ... although in this case he does not know .. 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 the modifications were all simultaneous, if they were extremely slight and gradual. Different kinds of modification would, also, serve for the same general purpose: as Mr. Wallace has remarked, "if a lens has too short or too long a focus, it may be amended either by an alteration of curvature, or an alteration of density; if the curvature be irregular, and the rays do not converge to a point, then any increased regularity of curvature will be an improvement. So the contraction of the iris and the muscular movements of the eye are neither of them essential to vision, but only improvements which might have been added and perfected at any stage of the construction of the instrument." Within the highest 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 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