Seite - 355 - in The Origin of Species

APPEARANCE OF WHOLE GROUPS 355 of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same gen- era or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection. For the development by this means of a group of forms, all of which are descended from some one progenitor, must have been an extremely slow process ; and the progeni- tors must have lived long before their modified descendants. But we continually overrate the perfection of the geological record, and falsely infer, because certain genera or families have not been found beneath a certain stage, that they did not exist before that stage. In all cases positive palaeonto- logical evidence may be implicitly trusted; negative evidence is worthless, as experience has so often shown. We contin- ually forget how large the world is, compared with the area over which our geological formations have been carefully ex- amined ; we forget that groups of species may elsewhere have long existed, and have slowly multiplied, before they invaded the ancient archipelagoes of Europe and the United States. We do not make due allowance for the intervals of time which have elapsed between our consecutive formations,— longer perhaps in many cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from some one parent-form: and in the succeeding formation, such groups or species will appear as if suddenly created. I may here recall a remark formerly made, namely, that it might require a long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and peculiar line of life, for instance, to fly through the air; and consequently that the transitional forms would often long remain confined to some one region ; but that, when this adaptation had once been effected, and a few species had thus acquired a great advantage over other or- ganisms, a comparatively short time would be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would spread rapidly and widely, throughout the world Professor Pictet, in his excellent Review of this work, in commenting on early transitional forms, and taking birds as an illustration, cannot see how the successive modifications of the anterior limbs of a supposed prototype could possibly have been of any advan- tage. But look at the penguins of the Southern Ocean ; have