If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection.

It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter.

It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain the what is the essence of the attraction of gravity?

Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species.

From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the grouping of stars in constellations.

Species of the same genus would occasionally exhibit reversions to lost ancestral characters.