This theory, however, does not seem adequate to explain the origin of all organs. It does not explain, for example, how limbs developed in a limbless organism. Wallace tried to avoid the difficulty by asserting that it is unreasonable to ask a new theory that it shall reveal to us exactly what took place in remote geological ages and how it took place. To this the obvious reply is, firstly, that we ought not to give unqualified acceptance to any theory of evolution until it does afford us such explanations, and, secondly, that the theory of the origin of species by means of natural selection is no longer a new one.
Latterly, however, Wallace appears to have given up all hope of being able to account for the origin of new organs by means of natural selection, for he states on page 431 of the issue of the _Fortnightly Review_ for March 1909: “It follows—not as a theory but as a fact—that whenever an advantageous variation is needed, it can only consist in an increase or decrease of some power or faculty already existing.” Now, in order for an increase or decrease to occur, there must be something in existence to be increased or diminished. Wallace, it is true, speaks here only of powers and faculties; but it can scarcely be supposed that he believes that variations as to structure are intrinsically different from those relating to powers and faculties.
4. Herbert Spencer urges, as an objection to the theory of natural selection, that favourable variations in one organ are likely to be counterbalanced by unfavourable variations in some other organ. He maintains that the chances are enormous against the occurrence of the “many coincident and co-ordinated variations” that are necessary to create a life or death determining advantage.
This objection was urged by a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ in January 1909, and even by Wallace himself in the _Fortnightly Review_ last March against the mutation theory. This objection, strong though it appears on paper, exists only in the imagination of the objector.
Those who urge it display a misunderstanding of the manner in which natural selection acts, and ignorance of the phenomenon of the correlation of organs.
Natural selection deals with an organism as a whole. Its effect is to permit those creatures to survive which, taken as a whole, are best adapted to their environment.