one definite direction, when variations in many other directions would
also preserve; or that one or two so varying should succeed in supplanting
the progeny of thousands of other individuals, and that this should by no
other cause be carried so far as to produce the appearance (as we have
before stated) of spots of fungi, &c.--are alternatives of an improbability
so extreme as to be practically equal to impossibility.

In spite of all the resources of a fertile imagination, the Darwinian, pure
and simple, is reduced to the assertion of a paradox as great as any he
opposes. In the place of a mere assertion of our ignorance as to the way
these phenomena have been produced, he brings forward, as their
explanation, a cause which it is contended in this work is demonstrably
insufficient.

Of course in this matter, as elsewhere throughout nature, we have to do
with the operation of fixed and constant natural laws, and the knowledge of
these may before long be obtained by human patience or human genius; but
there is, it is believed, already enough evidence to show that these as yet
unknown natural laws or law will never be resolved into the action of
"Natural Selection," but will constitute or exemplify a mode and condition
of organic action of which the Darwinian theory takes no account
whatsoever. [Page 63]

* * * * *

CHAPTER III.

THE CO-EXISTENCE OF CLOSELY SIMILAR STRUCTURES OF DIVERSE ORIGIN.

Chances against concordant variations.--Examples of discordant
ones.--Concordant variations not unlikely on a non-Darwinian
evolutionary hypothesis.--Placental and implacental mammals.--Birds and
reptiles.--Independent origins of similar sense organs.--The ear.--The
eye.--Other coincidences.--Causes besides Natural Selection produce
concordant variations in certain geographical regions.--Causes besides
Natural Selection produce concordant variations in certain zoological
and botanical groups.--There are homologous parts not genetically
related.--Harmony in respect of the organic and inorganic
worlds.--Summary and conclusion.

The theory of "Natural Selection" supposes that the varied forms and
structure of animals and plants have been built up merely by indefinite,
fortuitous,[49] minute variations in every part and in all
directions--those variations only being preserved which are directly or
indirectly useful to the individual possessing them, or ne