We shall, perhaps, best perceive the improbability of our being
enabled to connect species by numerous, fine, intermediate, fossil
links, by asking ourselves whether, for instance, geologists at some
future period will be able to prove, that our different breeds of
cattle, sheep, horses, and dogs have descended from a single stock or
from several aboriginal stocks; or, again, whether certain sea-shells
inhabiting the shores of North America, which are ranked by some
conchologists as distinct species from their European representatives,
and by other conchologists as only varieties, are really varieties or
are, as it is called, specifically distinct. This could be effected
only by the future geologist discovering in a fossil state numerous
intermediate gradations; and such success seems to me improbable in
the highest degree.
Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing
and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups
less wide than they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely
anything in breaking down the distinction between species, by
connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties;
and this not having been effected, is probably the gravest and most
obvious of all the many objections which may be urged against my
views. Hence it will be worth while to sum up the foregoing remarks,
under an imaginary illustration. The Malay Archipelago is of about the
size of Europe from the North Cape to the Mediterranean, and from
Britain to Russia; and therefore equals all the geological formations
which have been examined with any accuracy, excepting those of the
United States of America.
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