cases to the several laws of growth and variation. Hence, in fact, the law
of the Conditions of Existence is the higher law; as it includes, through
the inheritance of former variations and adaptations, that of Unity of
Type.


CHAPTER VII.

MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION.

Longevity -- Modifications not necessarily simultaneous -- Modifications
apparently of no direct service -- Progressive development -- Characters of
small functional importance, the most constant -- Supposed incompetence of
natural selection to account for the incipient stages of useful structures
-- Causes which interfere with the acquisition through natural selection of
useful structures -- Gradations of structure with changed functions --
Widely different organs in members of the same class, developed from one
and the same source -- Reasons for disbelieving in great and abrupt
modifications.

I will devote this chapter to the consideration of various miscellaneous
objections which have been advanced against my views, as some of the
previous discussions may thus be made clearer; but it would be useless to
discuss all of them, as many have been made by writers who have not taken
the trouble to understand the subject. Thus a distinguished German
naturalist has asserted that the weakest part of my theory is, that I
consider all organic beings as imperfect: what I have really said is, that
all are not as perfect as they might have been in relation to their
conditions; and this is shown to be the case by so many native forms in
many quarters of the world having yielded their places to intruding