rous flowers. Harvey
does not see that if only a few (as he supposes) of the seedlings
inherited being monstrosities, Natural Selection would be necessary
to select and preserve them. You had better return the "Gardeners'
Chronicle," etc., to my brother's. The case of Begonia (95/6. Harvey's
criticism was answered by Sir J.D. Hooker in the following number of the
"Gardeners' Chronicle" (February 25th, 1860, page 170).) in itself is
very curious; I am tempted to answer the notice, but I will refrain, for
there would be no end to answers.

With respect to your objection of a multitude of still living simple
forms, I have not discussed it anywhere in the "Origin," though I have
often thought it over. What you say about progress being only occasional
and retrogression not uncommon, I agree to; only that in the animal
kingdom I greatly doubt about retrogression being common. I have always
put it to myself--What advantage can we see in an infusory animal, or an
intestinal worm, or coral polypus, or earthworm being highly developed?
If no advantage, they would not become highly developed: not but what
all these animals have very complex structures (except infusoria), and
they may well be higher than the animals which occupied similar places
in the economy of nature before the Silurian epoch. There is a blind
snake with the appearances and, in some respects, habits of earthworms;
but this blind snake does not tend, as far as we can see, to replace and
drive out worms. I think I must in a future edition discuss a few more
such points, and will introduce this and H.C. Watson's objection about
the infinite number of species and the general rise in organisation. But
there is a directly opposite objection to yours which is very difficult
to answer--viz. how at the first start of life, when there were only
the simplest organisms, how did any complication of organisation profit
them? I can only answer that we have not facts enough to guide any
speculation on the subject.

With respect to Lepidosiren, Ganoid fishes, perhaps Ornithorhynchus, I
suspect, as stated in the "Origin," (95/7. "Origin of Species" (Edition
VI.), page 83.), that they have been preserved, from inhabiting
fresh-water and isolated parts of the world, in which there has been
less competition and less rapid progress in Natural Selection, owing
to the fewness of individuals which can inhabit small areas; and where
there are few individuals variation at most must be sl