Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life, by Thomas H. Huxley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life Author: Thomas H. Huxley Release Date: January 6, 2009 [EBook #2936] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY *** Produced by Amy E. Zelmer, and David Widger GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE. By Thomas H. Huxley 1 MERCHANTS occasionally go through a wholesome, though troublesome and not always satisfactory, process which they term "taking stock." After all the excitement of speculation, the pleasure of gain, and the pain of loss, the trader makes up his mind to face facts and to learn the exact quantity and quality of his solid and reliable possessions. The man of science does well sometimes to imitate this procedure; and, forgetting for the time the importance of his own small winnings, to re-examine the common stock in trade, so that he may make sure how far the stock of bullion in the cellar—on the faith of whose existence so much paper has been circulating—is really the solid gold of truth.

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Publié le	08 décembre 2010
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Geological Contemporaneity and PersistentTypes of Life, by Thomas H. HuxleyThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of LifeAuthor: Thomas H. HuxleyRelease Date: January 6, 2009 [EBook #2936]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ASCII*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY ***Produced by Amy E. Zelmer, and David WidgerGEOLOGICALCONTEMPORANEITY ANDPERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE.By Thomas H. Huxley1MERCHANTS occasionally go through a wholesome, thoughtroublesome and not always satisfactory, process which they term"taking stock." After all the excitement of speculation, the pleasureof gain, and the pain of loss, the trader makes up his mind to facefacts and to learn the exact quantity and quality of his solid andreliable possessions.

The man of science does well sometimes to imitate thisprocedure; and, forgetting for the time the importance of his ownsmall winnings, to re-examine the common stock in trade, so that hemay make sure how far the stock of bullion in the cellar—on the faithof whose existence so much paper has been circulating—is reallythe solid gold of truth.The Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society seems to bean occasion well suited for an undertaking of this kind—for aninquiry, in fact, into the nature and value of the present results ofpaleontological investigation; and the more so, as all those whohave paid close attention to the late multitudinous discussions inwhich paleontology is implicated, must have felt the urgentnecessity of some such scrutiny.First in order, as the most definite and unquestionable of all theresults of paleontology, must be mentioned the immense extensionand impulse given to botany, zoology, and comparative anatomy, bythe investigation of fossil remains. Indeed, the mass of biologicalfacts has been so greatly increased, and the range of biologicalspeculation has been so vastly widened, by the researches of thegeologist and paleontologist, that it is to be feared there arenaturalists in existence who look upon geology as Brindleyregarded rivers. "Rivers," said the great engineer, "were made tofeed canals"; and geology, some seem to think, was solely createdto advance comparative anatomy.Were such a thought justifiable, it could hardly expect to bereceived with favour by this assembly. But it is not justifiable. Yourfavourite science has her own great aims independent of all others;and if, notwithstanding her steady devotion to her own progress, shecan scatter such rich alms among her sisters, it should beremembered that her charity is of the sort that does not impoverish,but "blesseth him that gives and him that takes."Regard the matter as we will, however, the facts remain. Nearly40,000 species of animals and plants have been added to theSystema Naturae by paleontologic research. This is a livingpopulation equivalent to that of a new continent in mere number;equivalent to that of a new hemisphere, if we take into account thesmall population of insects as yet found fossil, and the largeproportion and peculiar organization of many of the Vertebrata.But, beyond this, it is perhaps not too much to say that, except forthe necessity of interpreting paleontologic facts, the laws ofdistribution would have received less careful study; while fewcomparative anatomists (and those not of the first order) would havebeen induced by mere love of detail, as such, to study the minutiaeof osteology, were it not that in such minutiae lie the only keys to themost interesting riddles offered by the extinct animal world.These assuredly are great and solid gains. Surely it is matter forno small congratulation that in half a century (for paleontology,though it dawned earlier, came into full day only with Cuvier) asubordinate branch of biology should have doubled the value andthe interest of the whole group of sciences to which it belongs.But this is not all. Allied with geology, paleontology hasestablished two laws of inestimable importance: the first, that one

and the same area of the earth's surface has been successivelyoccupied by very different kinds of living beings; the second, that theorder of succession established in one locality holds good,approximately, in all.The first of these laws is universal and irreversible; the second isan induction from a vast number of observations, though it maypossibly, and even probably, have to admit of exceptions. As aconsequence of the second law, it follows that a peculiar relationfrequently subsists between series of strata, containing organicremains, in different localities. The series resemble one another, notonly in virtue of a general resemblance of the organic remains in thetwo, but also in virtue of a resemblance in the order and character ofthe serial succession in each. There is a resemblance ofarrangement; so that the separate terms of each series, as well asthe whole series, exhibit a correspondence.Succession implies time; the lower members of a series ofsedimentary rocks are certainly older than the upper; and when thenotion of age was once introduced as the equivalent of succession,it was no wonder that correspondence in succession came to belooked upon as a correspondence in age, or "contemporaneity."And, indeed, so long as relative age only is spoken of,correspondence in succession 'is' correspondence in age; it is'relative' contemporaneity.But it would have been very much better for geology if so looseand ambiguous a word as "contemporaneous" had been excludedfrom her terminology, and if, in its stead, some term expressingsimilarity of serial relation, and excluding the notion of timealtogether, had been employed to denote correspondence inposition in two or more series of strata.In anatomy, where such correspondence of position hasconstantly to be spoken of, it is denoted by the word "homology"and its derivatives; and for Geology (which after all is only theanatomy and physiology of the earth) it might be well to invent somesingle word, such as "homotaxis" (similarity of order), in order toexpress an essentially similar idea. This, however, has not beendone, and most probably the inquiry will at once be made—To whatend burden science with a new and strange term in place of oneold, familiar, and part of our common language?The reply to this question will become obvious as the inquiry intothe results of paleontology is pushed further.Those whose business it is to acquaint themselves specially withthe works of paleontologists, in fact, will be fully aware that very few,if any, would rest satisfied with such a statement of the conclusionsof their branch of biology as that which has just been given.Our standard repertories of paleontology profess to teach us farhigher things—to disclose the entire succession of living forms uponthe surface of the globe; to tell us of a wholly different distribution ofclimatic conditions in ancient times; to reveal the character of thefirst of all living existences; and to trace out the law of progress fromthem to us.It may not be unprofitable to bestow on these professions a

somewhat more critical examination than they have hithertoreceived, in order to ascertain how far they rest on an irrefragablebasis; or whether, after all, it might not be well for paleontologists tolearn a little more carefully that scientific "ars artium," the art ofsaying "I don't know." And to this end let us define somewhat moreexactly the extent of these pretensions of paleontology.Every one is aware that Professor Bronn's 'Untersuchungen' andProfessor Pictet's 'Traite de Paleontologie' are works of standardauthority, familiarly consulted by every working paleontologist. It isdesirable to speak of these excellent books, and of theirdistinguished authors, with the utmost respect, and in a tone as faras possible removed from carping criticism; indeed, if they arespecially cited in this place, it is merely in justification of theassertion that the following propositions, which may be foundimplicitly, or explicitly, in the works in question, are regarded by themass of paleontologists and geologists, not only on the Continentbut in this country, as expressing some of the best-establishedresults of paleontology. Thus:—Animals and plants began their existence together, not long afterthe commencement of the deposition of the sedimentary rocks; andthen succeeded one another, in such a manner, that totally distinctfaunae and florae occupied the whole surface of the earth, one afterthe other, and during distinct epochs of time.A geological formation is the sum of all the strata deposited overthe whole surface of the earth during one of these epochs: ageological fauna or flora is the sum of all the species of animals orplants which occupied the whole surface of the globe, during one ofthese epochs.The population of the earth's surface was at first very similar in allparts, and only from the middle of the Tertiary epoch onwards,began to show a distinct distribution in zones.The constitution of the original population, as well as thenumerical proportions of its members, indicates a warmer and, onthe whole, somewhat tropical climate, which remained tolerablyequable throughout the year. The subsequent distribution of livingbeings in zones is the result of a gradual lowering of the generaltemperature, which first began to be felt at the poles.It is not now proposed to inquire whether these doctrines are trueor false; but to direct your attention to a much simpler though veryessential preliminary question—What is their logical basis? whatare the fundamental assumptions upon which they all logicallydepend? and what is the evidence on which those fundamentalpropositions demand our assent?These assumptions are two: the first, that the commencement ofthe geological record is coeval with the commencement of life onthe globe; the second, that geological contemporaneity is the samething as chronological synchrony. Without the first of theseassumptions there would of course be no ground for any statementrespecting the commencement of life; without the second, all theother statements cited, every one of which implies a knowledge ofthe state of different parts of the earth at one and the same time, willbe no less devoid of demonstration.

The first assumption obviously rests entirely on negativeevidence. This is, of course, the only evidence that ever can beavailable to prove the commencement of any series of phenomena;but, at the same time, it must be recollected that the value ofnegative evidence depends entirely on the amount of positivecorroboration it receives. If A B wishes to prove an 'alibi', it is of nouse for him to get a thousand witnesses simply to swear that theydid not see him in such and such a place, unless the witnesses areprepared to prove that they must have seen him had he been there.But the evidence that animal life commenced with the Lingula-flags,'e.g.', would seem to be exactly of this unsatisfactory uncorroboratedsort. The Cambrian witnesses simply swear they "haven't seenanybody their way"; upon which the counsel for the other sideimmediately puts in ten or twelve thousand feet of Devoniansandstones to make oath they never saw a fish or a mollusk, thoughall the world knows there were plenty in their time.But then it is urged that, though the Devonian rocks in one part ofthe world exhibit no fossils, in another they do, while the lowerCambrian rocks nowhere exhibit fossils, and hence no living beingcould have existed in their epoch.To this there are two replies: the first, that the observational basisof the assertion that the lowest rocks are nowhere fossiliferous is anamazingly small one, seeing how very small an area, in comparisonto that of the whole world, has yet been fully searched; the second,that the argument is good for nothing unless the unfossiliferousrocks in question were not only 'contemporaneous' in the geologicalsense, but 'synchronous' in the chronological sense. To use the'alibi' illustration again. If a man wishes to prove he was in neither oftwo places, A and B, on a given day, his witnesses for each placemust be prepared to answer for the whole day. If they can only provethat he was not at A in the morning, and not at B in the afternoon,the evidence of his absence from both is 'nil', because he mighthave been at B in the morning and at A in the afternoon.Thus everything depends upon the validity of the secondassumption. And we must proceed to inquire what is the realmeaning of the word "contemporaneous" as employed bygeologists. To this end a concrete example may be taken.The Lias of England and the Lias of Germany, the Cretaceousrocks of Britain and the Cretaceous rocks of Southern India, aretermed by geologists "contemporaneous" formations; but wheneverany thoughtful geologist is asked whether he means to say that theywere deposited synchronously, he says, "No,—only within the samegreat epoch." And if, in pursuing the inquiry, he is asked what maybe the approximate value in time of a "great epoch"—whether itmeans a hundred years, or a thousand, or a million, or ten millionyears—his reply is, "I cannot tell."If the further question be put, whether physical geology is inpossession of any method by which the actual synchrony (or thereverse) of any two distant deposits can be ascertained, no suchmethod can be heard of; it being admitted by all the best authoritiesthat neither similarity of mineral composition, nor of physicalcharacter, nor even direct continuity of stratum, are 'absolute' proofs

of the synchronism of even approximated sedimentary strata: while,for distant deposits, there seems to be no kind of physical evidenceattainable of a nature competent to decide whether such depositswere formed simultaneously, or whether they possess any givendifference of antiquity. To return to an example already given: Allcompetent authorities will probably assent to the proposition thatphysical geology does not enable us in any way to reply to thisquestion—Were the British Cretaceous rocks deposited at the sametime as those of India, or are they a million of years younger or amillion of years older?Is paleontology able to succeed where physical geology fails?Standard writers on paleontology, as has been seen, assume thatshe can. They take it for granted, that deposits containing similarorganic remains are synchronous—at any rate in a broad sense;and yet, those who will study the eleventh and twelfth chapters ofSir Henry De La Beche's remarkable 'Researches in TheoreticalGeology', published now nearly thirty years ago, and will carry outthe arguments there most luminously stated, to their logicalconsequences, may very easily convince themselves that evenabsolute identity of organic contents is no proof of the synchrony ofdeposits, while absolute diversity is no proof of difference of date.Sir Henry De La Beche goes even further, and adduces conclusiveevidence to show that the different parts of one and the samestratum, having a similar composition throughout, containing thesame organic remains, and having similar beds above and below it,may yet differ to any conceivable extent in age.Edward Forbes was in the habit of asserting that the similarity ofthe organic contents of distant formations was 'prima facie'evidence, not of their similarity, but of their difference of age; andholding as he did the doctrine of single specific centres, theconclusion was as legitimate as any other; for the two districts musthave been occupied by migration from one of the two, or from anintermediate spot, and the chances against exact coincidence ofmigration and of imbedding are infinite.In point of fact, however, whether the hypothesis of single or ofmultiple specific centres be adopted, similarity of organic contentscannot possibly afford any proof of the synchrony of the depositswhich contain them; on the contrary, it is demonstrably compatiblewith the lapse of the most prodigious intervals of time, and with theinterposition of vast changes in the organic and inorganic worlds,between the epochs in which such deposits were formed.On what amount of similarity of their faunae is the doctrine of thecontemporaneity of the European and of the North AmericanSilurians based? In the last edition of Sir Charles Lyell's'Elementary Geology' it is stated, on the authority of a formerPresident of this Society, the late Daniel Sharpe, that between 30and 40 per cent. of the species of Silurian Mollusca are common toboth sides of the Atlantic. By way of due allowance for furtherdiscovery, let us double the lesser number and suppose that 60 percent. of the species are common to the North American and theBritish Silurians. Sixty per cent. of species in common is, then, proofof contemporaneity.Now suppose that, a million or two of years hence, when Britain

has made another dip beneath the sea and has come up again,some geologist applies this doctrine, in comparing the strata laidbare by the upheaval of the bottom, say, of St. George's Channelwith what may then remain of the Suffolk Crag. Reasoning in thesame way, he will at once decide the Suffolk Crag and the St.George's Channel beds to be contemporaneous; although wehappen to know that a vast period (even in the geological sense) oftime, and physical changes of almost unprecedented extent,separate the two.But if it be a demonstrable fact that strata containing more than 60or 70 per cent. of species of Mollusca in common, andcomparatively close together, may yet be separated by an amount ofgeological time sufficient to allow of some of the greatest physicalchanges the world has seen, what becomes of that sort ofcontemporaneity the sole evidence of which is a similarity of facies,or the identity of half a dozen species, or of a good many genera?And yet there is no better evidence for the contemporaneityassumed by all who adopt the hypothesis of universal faunae andflorae, of a universally uniform climate, and of a sensible cooling ofthe globe during geological time.There seems, then, no escape from the admission that neitherphysical geology, nor paleontology, possesses any method bywhich the absolute synchronism of two strata can be demonstrated.All that geology can prove is local order of succession. It ismathematically certain that, in any given vertical linear section of anundisturbed series of sedimentary deposits, the bed which lieslowest is the oldest. In many other vertical linear sections of thesame series, of course, corresponding beds will occur in a similarorder; but, however great may be the probability, no man can saywith absolute certainty that the beds in the two sections weresynchronously deposited. For areas of moderate extent, it isdoubtless true that no practical evil is likely to result from assumingthe corresponding beds to be synchronous or strictlycontemporaneous; and there are multitudes of accessorycircumstances which may fully justify the assumption of suchsynchrony. But the moment the geologist has to deal with largeareas, or with completely separated deposits, the mischief ofconfounding that "homotaxis" or "similarity of arrangement," which'can' be demonstrated, with "synchrony" or "identity of date," forwhich there is not a shadow of proof, under the one common term of"contemporaneity" becomes incalculable, and proves the constantsource of gratuitous speculations.For anything that geology or paleontology are able to show to thecontrary, a Devonian fauna and flora in the British Islands may havebeen contemporaneous with Silurian life in North America, and witha Carboniferous fauna and flora in Africa. Geographical provincesand zones may have been as distinctly marked in the Paleozoicepoch as at present, and those seemingly sudden appearances ofnew genera and species, which we ascribe to new creation, may besimple results of migration.It may be so; it may be otherwise. In the present condition of ourknowledge and of our methods, one verdict—"not proven, and notprovable"—must be recorded against all the grand hypotheses of

the paleontologist respecting the general succession of life on theglobe. The order and nature of terrestrial life, as a whole, are openquestions. Geology at present provides us with most valuabletopographical records, but she has not the means of working theminto a universal history. Is such a universal history, then, to beregarded as unattainable? Are all the grandest and most interestingproblems which offer themselves to the geological studentessentially insoluble? Is he in the position of a scientific Tantalus—doomed always to thirst for a knowledge which he cannot obtain?The reverse is to be hoped; nay, it may not be impossible to indicatethe source whence help will come.In commencing these remarks, mention was made of the greatobligations under which the naturalist lies to the geologist andpaleontologist. Assuredly the time will come when these obligationswill be repaid tenfold, and when the maze of the world's past history,through which the pure geologist and the pure paleontologist find noguidance, will be securely threaded by the clue furnished by thenaturalist.All who are competent to express an opinion on the subject are,at present, agreed that the manifold varieties of animal andvegetable form have not either come into existence by chance, norresult from capricious exertions of creative power; but that they havetaken place in a definite order, the statement of which order is whatmen of science term a natural law. Whether such a law is to beregarded as an expression of the mode of operation of naturalforces, or whether it is simply a statement of the manner in which asupernatural power has thought fit to act, is a secondary question,so long as the existence of the law and the possibility of itsdiscovery by the human intellect are granted. But he must be a half-hearted philosopher who, believing in that possibility, and havingwatched the gigantic strides of the biological sciences during thelast twenty years, doubts that science will sooner or later make thisfurther step, so as to become possessed of the law of evolution oforganic forms—of the unvarying order of that great chain of causesand effects of which all organic forms, ancient and modern, are thelinks. And then, if ever, we shall be able to begin to discuss, withprofit, the questions respecting the commencement of life, and thenature of the successive populations of the globe, which so manyseem to think are already answered.The preceding arguments make no particular claim to novelty;indeed they have been floating more or less distinctly before theminds of geologists for the last thirty years; and if, at the presenttime, it has seemed desirable to give them more definite andsystematic expression, it is because paleontology is every dayassuming a greater importance, and now requires to rest on a basisthe firmness of which is thoroughly well assured. Among itsfundamental conceptions, there must be no confusion between whatis certain and what is more or less probable. 2 But, pending theconstruction of a surer foundation than paleontology nowpossesses, it may be instructive, assuming for the nonce thegeneral correctness of the ordinary hypothesis of geologicalcontemporaneity, to consider whether the deductions which areordinarily drawn from the whole body of paleontologic facts arejustifiable.

The evidence on which such conclusions are based is of twokinds, negative and positive. The value of negative evidence, inconnection with this inquiry, has been so fully and clearly discussedin an address from the chair of this Society 3, which none of us haveforgotten, that nothing need at present be said about it; the more, asthe considerations which have been laid before you have certainlynot tended to increase your estimation of such evidence. It will bepreferable to turn to the positive facts of paleontology, and to inquirewhat they tell us.We are all accustomed to speak of the number and the extent ofthe changes in the living population of the globe during geologicaltime as something enormous: and indeed they are so, if we regardonly the negative differences which separate the older rocks fromthe more modern, and if we look upon specific and generic changesas great changes, which from one point of view, they truly are. Butleaving the negative differences out of consideration, and lookingonly at the positive data furnished by the fossil world from a broaderpoint of view—from that of the comparative anatomist who hasmade the study of the greater modifications of animal form his chiefbusiness—a surprise of another kind dawns upon the mind; andunder 'this' aspect the smallness of the total change becomes asastonishing as was its greatness under the other.There are two hundred known orders of plants; of these not one iscertainly known to exist exclusively in the fossil state. The wholelapse of geological time has as yet yielded not a single new ordinaltype of vegetable structure. 4The positive change in passing from the recent to the ancientanimal world is greater, but still singularly small. No fossil animal isso distinct from those now living as to require to be arranged even ina separate class from those which contain existing forms. It is onlywhen we come to the orders, which may be roughly estimated atabout a hundred and thirty, that we meet with fossil animals sodistinct from those now living as to require orders for themselves;and these do not amount, on the most liberal estimate, to more thanabout 10 per cent. of the whole.There is no certainly known extinct order of Protozoa; there is butone among the Coelenterata—that of the rugose corals; there isnone among the Mollusca; there are three, the Cystidea, Blastoidea,and Edrioasterida, among the Echinoderms; and two, the Trilobitaand Eurypterida, among the Crustacea; making altogether five forthe great sub-kingdom of Annulosa. Among Vertebrates there is noordinally distinct fossil fish: there is only one extinct order ofAmphibia—the Labyrinthodonts; but there are at least four distinctorders of Reptilia, viz. the Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria, Pterosauria,Dinosauria, and perhaps another or two. There is no known extinctorder of Birds, and no certainly known extinct order of Mammals, theordinal distinctness of the "Toxodontia" being doubtful.The objection that broad statements of this kind, after all, restlargely on negative evidence is obvious, but it has less force thanmay at first be supposed; for, as might be expected from thecircumstances of the case, we possess more abundant positiveevidence regarding Fishes and marine Mollusks than respectingany other forms of animal life; and yet these offer us, through the

whole range of geological time, no species ordinally distinct fromthose now living; while the far less numerous class of Echinodermspresents three; and the Crustacea two, such orders, though none ofthese come down later than the Paleozoic age. Lastly, the Reptiliapresent the extraordinary and exceptional phenomenon of as manyextinct as existing orders, if not more; the four mentionedmaintaining their existence from the Lias to the Chalk inclusive.Some years ago one of your Secretaries pointed out another kindof positive paleontologic evidence tending towards the sameconclusion—afforded by the existence of what he termed "persistenttypes" of vegetable and of animal life. 5 He stated, on the authorityof Dr. Hooker, that there are Carboniferous plants which appear tobe generically identical with some now living; that the cone of theOolitic 'Araucaria' is hardly distinguishable from that of an existingspecies; that a true 'Pinus' appears in the Purbecks, and a 'Juglans'in the Chalk; while, from the Bagshot Sands, a 'Banksia', the woodof which is not distinguishable from that of species now living inAustralia, had been obtained.Turning to the animal kingdom, he affirmed the tabulate corals ofthe Silurian rocks to be wonderfully like those which now exist;while even the families of the Aporosa were all represented in theolder Mesozoic rocks.Among the Molluska similar facts were adduced. Let it be borne inmind that 'Avicula', 'Mytails', 'Chiton', 'Natica', 'Patella', 'Trochus','Discina', 'Orbicula', 'Lingula', 'Rhynchonella', and 'Nautilus', all ofwhich are existing 'genera', are given without a doubt as Silurian inthe last edition of 'Siluria'; while the highest forms of the highestCephalopods are represented in the Lias by a genus,'Belemnoteuthis', which presents the closest relation to the existing'Loligo'.The two highest groups of the Annulosa, the Insecta and theArachnida, are represented in the Coal, either by existing genera, orby forms differing from existing genera in quite minor peculiarities.Turning to the Vertebrata, the only Paleozoic Elasmobranch Fishof which we have any complete knowledge is the Devonian andCarboniferous 'Pleuracanthus', which differs no more from existingSharks than these do from one another.Again, vast as is the number of undoubtedly Ganoid fossil Fishes,and great as is their range in time, a large mass of evidence hasrecently been adduced to show that almost all those respectingwhich we possess sufficient information, are referable to the samesub-ordinal groups as the existing 'Lepidosteus', 'Polypterus', andSturgeon; and that a singular relation obtains between the older andthe younger Fishes; the former, the Devonian Ganoids, beingalmost all members of the same sub-order as 'Polypterus', while theMesozoic Ganoids are almost all similarly allied to 'Lepidosteus'. 6Again, what can be more remarkable than the singular constancyof structure preserved throughout a vast period of time by the familyof the Pycnodonts and by that of the true Coelacanths; the formerpersisting, with but insignificant modifications, from theCarboniferous to the Tertiary rocks, inclusive; the latter existing, withstill less change, from the Carboniferous rocks to the Chalk,

inclusive?Among Reptiles, the highest living group, that of the Crocodilia, isrepresented, at the early part of the Mesozoic epoch, by speciesidentical in the essential characters of their organization with thosenow living, and differing from the latter only in such matters as theform of the articular facets of the vertebral centra, in the extent towhich the nasal passages are separated from the cavity of themouth by bone, and in the proportions of the limbs.And even as regards the Mammalia, the scanty remains ofTriassic and Oolitic species afford no foundation for the suppositionthat the organization of the oldest forms differed nearly so muchfrom some of those which now live as these differ from one another.It is needless to multiply these instances; enough has been saidto justify the statement that, in view of the immense diversity ofknown animal and vegetable forms, and the enormous lapse of timeindicated by the accumulation of fossiliferous strata, the onlycircumstance to be wondered at is, not that the changes of life, asexhibited by positive evidence, have been so great, but that theyhave been so small.Be they great or small, however, it is desirable to attempt toestimate them. Let us, therefore, take each great division of theanimal world in succession, and, whenever an order or a family canbe shown to have had a prolonged existence, let us endeavour toascertain how far the later members of the group differ from theearlier ones. If these later members, in all or in many cases, exhibita certain amount of modification, the fact is, so far, evidence infavour of a general law of change; and, in a rough way, the rapidityof that change will be measured by the demonstrable amount ofmodification. On the other hand, it must be recollected that theabsence of any modification, while it may leave the doctrine of theexistence of a law of change without positive support, cannotpossibly disprove all forms of that doctrine, though it may afford asufficient refutation of any of them.The PROTOZOA.—The Protozoa are represented throughout thewhole range of geological series, from the Lower Silurian formationto the present day. The most ancient forms recently made known byEhrenberg are exceedingly like those which now exist: no one hasever pretended that the difference between any ancient and anymodern Foraminifera is of more than generic value, nor are theoldest Foraminifera either simpler, more embryonic, or lessdifferentiated, than the existing forms.The COELENTERATA.—The Tabulate Corals have existed fromthe Silurian epoch to the present day, but I am not aware that theancient 'Heliolites' possesses a single mark of a more embryonic orless differentiated character, or less high organization, than theexisting 'Heliopora'. As for the Aporose Corals, in what respect isthe Silurian 'Paleocyclus' less highly organized or more embryonicthan the modern 'Fungia', or the Liassic Aporosa than the existingmembers of the same families?The 'Mollusca'.—In what sense is the living 'Waldheimia' lessembryonic, or more specialized; than the paleozoic 'Spirifer'; or theexisting 'Rhynchonellae', 'Craniae', 'Discinae', 'Lingulae', than the