s the most obvious and forcible of the many
objections which may be urged against my theory. 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 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 questions 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. 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. Numerous existing doubtful forms could be named which
are probably varieties; but who will pretend that in future ages so
many fossil links will be discovered, that naturalists will be able
to decide, on the common view, whether or not these doubtful forms are
varieties? As long as most of the links between any two species are
unknown, if any one link or intermediate variety be discovered, it will
simply be classed as another and distinct species. Only a small portion
of the world has been geologically explored. Only organic beings of
certain classes can be preserved in a fossil condition, at least in any
great number. Widely ranging species vary most, and varieties are often
at first local,--both causes rendering the discovery of intermediate
links less likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and
distant regions until they are considerably modified and improved; and
when they do spread, if discovered in a geological formation, they will
appear as if suddenly created there, and will be simply classed as new
species. Most formations have be