infinitely greater doubts, than the bones themselves. The same
formation may appear recent in places where it shews itself at the
surface, and ancient in those where it is covered by the beds which
have succeeded it. Ancient formations may have been transported by
partial inundations, and thus have covered recent bones; they may
have fallen upon them by crumbling, and thus have enveloped and
mingled them with the productions of the ancient sea, which they
previously contained. Bones of ancient periods may have been washed
out by the waters, and afterwards enveloped in recent alluvial
formations. Lastly, recent bones may have fallen into the fissures
or caverns of ancient rocks, and been enveloped by stalactites or
other incrustations. In every individual instance, therefore, it
becomes necessary to analyze and appreciate all those circumstances
which might disguise the real origin of fossil remains; and it rarely
happens that people who have collected bones have been themselves
aware of this necessity, the consequence of which has been, that the
true characters of their geological position have been almost always
neglected or misunderstood.
Thirdly, there are some doubtful species, which must occasion more
or less uncertainty in the results of our researches, until they
have been clearly ascertained. Thus the horses and buffaloes that
occur along with the elephants, have not yet received appropriate
specific characters; and such geologists as are disinclined to adopt
the different epochs which I have endeavoured to establish with
regard to fossil bones, may, for many years to come, draw from thence
an argument against my system, so much the more convenient as it is
contained in my own work.
But allowing that these epochs are liable to some objections, from
such as may only consider some particular case, I am not the less
satisfied, that those who shall take a comprehensive view of the
phenomena, will not be checked by such inconsiderable and partial
difficulties, and will be led to conclude, as I have done, that
there has been at least one, and very probably two, successions in
the class of quadrupeds, previous to that which at the present day
peoples the surface of the earth.
_Proofs that the Extinct Species of Quadrupeds are not varieties of
the presently existing Species._
I now proceed to the consideration of another objection, one, in
fact, which has already been urged against me.
Why may not the presently existing races of land quadrupeds, it has
been asked, be modifications of those ancient races which we find in
a fossil state; which modifications may have been produced by local
circumstances and change of climate; and carried to the extreme
difference which they now present, during a long succession of ages?
This objection must appear strong to those especially who believe
in the possibility of indefinite alteration of forms in organised
bodies; and who think that, during a succession of ages, and by
repeated changes of habitudes, all the species might be changed into
one another, or might result from a single species.
Yet to these persons an answer may be given from their own system. If
the species have changed by degrees, we ought to find traces of these
gradual modifications. Thus, between the palæotheria and our present
species, we should be able to discover some intermediate forms; and
yet no such discovery has ever been made.
Why have not the bowels of the earth preserved the monuments of so
strange a genealogy, if it be not because the species of former times
were as constant as ours; or, at least, because the catastrophe which
destroyed them, had not left them sufficient time for undergoing the
variation alleged?
In order to reply to those naturalists who acknowledge that the
_varieties_ of animals are restrained within certain limits fixed by
nature, it would be necessary to examine how far these limits extend.
This is a very curious inquiry,--highly interesting in itself, under
a variety of relations, and yet one that has been hitherto very
little attended to.
Before entering upon this inquiry, it is proper to define what is
meant by a _species_, so that the definition may serve to regulate
the employment of the term. A species, therefore, may be defined,
as comprehending _the individuals which descend from each other,
or from common parents, and those which resemble them as much as
they resemble each other_. Thus, we consider as _varieties_ of a
species, only the races more or less different which may have sprung
from it by generation. Our observations, therefore, regarding the
differences between the ancestors and descendants, afford us the
only certain rule by which we can judge on this subject; all other
considerations leading to hypothetical conclusions destitute of
proof. Now, considering the _varieties_ in this view, we observe
that the differences which constitute it, depend upon determinate
circumstances, and that their extent increases in proportion to the
intensity of these circumstances.
Thus, the most superficial characters are the most variable: the
colour depends much upon the light; the thickness of the fur upon the
heat; the size, upon the abundance of food. But in a wild animal,
even these varieties are greatly limited by the natural habits of the
animal itself, which does not voluntarily remove far from the places
where it finds, in the necessary degree, all that is requisite, for
the support of its species, and does not even extend its haunts to
any great distance, unless it also finds all these circumstances
conjoined. Thus, although the wolf and the fox inhabit all the
climates from the torrid to the frigid zone, we hardly find any other
difference among them, in the whole of that vast space, than a little
more or a little less beauty in their fur. I have compared skulls of
foxes from the northern countries and from Egypt, with those of the
foxes of France, and have found no difference but such as might be
expected in different individuals. Such of the wild animals as are
confined within narrower limits, vary still less, especially those
which are carnivorous. The only difference between the hyena of
Persia and that of Morocco, consists in a thicker or a thinner mane.
The wild herbivorous animals feel the influence of climate somewhat
more extensively, because there is added to it in their case, the
influence of the food, which may happen to differ both as to quantity
and quality. Thus, the elephants of one forest are often larger than
those of another; and their tusks are somewhat longer in places where
their food may happen to be more favourable for the production of the
matter of ivory. The same may take place with regard to the horns
of rein-deer and stags. But let us compare two elephants the most
dissimilar, and we shall not discover the slightest difference in the
number and articulations of the bones, the structure of the teeth, &c.
Besides, the herbivorous species, in the wild state, seem more
restrained from dispersing than the carnivorous animals, because the
sort of food which they require, combines with the temperature to
prevent them.
Nature also takes care to guard against the alteration of the
species, which might result from their mixture, by the mutual
aversion with which it has inspired them. It requires all the
ingenuity and all the power of man to accomplish these unions, even
between species that have the nearest resemblances. And, when the
individuals produced by these forced conjunctions are fruitful, which
is very seldom the case, their fecundity does not continue beyond a
few generations; and would not probably proceed so far, without a
continuance of the same cares which excited it at first. Thus, we
never see in our woods individuals intermediate between the hare and
the rabbit; between the stag and the doe; or between the martin and
the pole-cat.
But the power of man changes this order; it discloses all those
variations, of which the type of each species is susceptible;
and from them derives productions which the species, if left to
themselves, would never have yielded.
Here the degree of the variations is still proportional to the
intensity of their cause, which is slavery. It is not very high in
the semi-domesticated species, such as the cat. A softer fur; more
brilliant colours; greater or less size; these form the whole extent
of the variations in this species; for the skeleton of an Angora cat
differs in no regular and constant circumstance from that of a wild
cat.
In the domesticated herbivorous animals, which we transport into
all kinds of climates, and subject to all kinds of management, both
with regard to labour and nourishment, we certainly obtain greater
variations; but still they are all merely superficial. Greater
or less size; longer or shorter horns, or even the want of these
entirely; a hump of fat, larger or smaller, on the shoulder; these
form the differences between the various races of the common ox or
bull; and these differences continue long, even in such breeds as
have been transported from the countries in which they were produced,
when proper care is taken to prevent crossing.
Of this nature are also the innumerable varieties of the common
sheep, which consist chiefly in differences of their fleeces, as the
wool which they produce is an important object of attention. These
varieties, although not quite so perceptible, are yet sufficiently
marked among horses. In general, the forms of the bones vary little;
their connections and articulations, and the forms of the large
grinding teeth, never vary at all.
The small size of the tusks in the domestic hog, compared with the
wild boar’s, and the junction of its cloven hoofs into one in some
races, form the extreme point of the differences which we have
produced in the domesticated herbivorous quadrupeds.
The most remarkable effects of the influence of man are manifested
in the animal which he has reduced most completely under subjection,
the dog,--that species so entirely devoted to ours, that even the
individuals of it seem to have sacrificed to us their will, their
interest, and inclination. Transported by man into every part of
the world, subjected to all the causes capable of influencing their
development, regulated in their sexual intercourse by the pleasure of
their masters, dogs vary in colour; in the quantity of their hair,
which they sometimes even lose altogether, and in its nature; in
size, which varies as one to five in the linear dimensions, amounting
to more than a hundred fold in bulk; in the form of the ears, nose,
and tail; in the proportional length of the legs; in the progressive
development of the brain in the domestic varieties, whence results
the form of their head, which is sometimes slender, with a lengthened
muzzle and flat forehead, and sometimes having a short muzzle and a
protuberant forehead; insomuch that the apparent differences between
a mastiff and a water-spaniel, and between a greyhound and a pug,
are more striking than those that exist between any two species of
the same natural genus in a wild state. Finally, and this may be
considered as the maximum of variation hitherto known in the animal
kingdom, there are races of dogs which have an additional toe on the
hind foot, with corresponding tarsal bones; as there are, in the
human species, some families that have six fingers on each hand. Yet,
in all these varieties, the relations of the bones remain the same,
nor does the form of the teeth ever change in any perceptible degree;
the only variation in respect to these latter being, that, in some
individuals, one additional false grinder appears, sometimes on the
one side, and sometimes on the other[82].
Animals, therefore, have natural characters, which resist every kind
of influence, whether natural or produced by human interference, and
nothing indicates that, with regard to them, time has more effect
than climate and domestication.
I am aware that some naturalists lay great stress upon the thousands
of ages which they call into action by a dash of the pen; but, in
such matters, we can only judge of what a long period of time might
produce, by multiplying in idea what a less time produces. With
this view, I have endeavoured to collect the most ancient documents
relating to the forms of animals; and there are none which equal,
either in antiquity or abundance, those that Egypt furnishes. It
affords us, not only representations of animals, but even their
identical bodies embalmed in its catacombs.
I have examined with the greatest attention the figures of quadrupeds
and birds sculptured upon the numerous obelisks brought from Egypt to
ancient Rome. All these figures possess, in their general character,
which alone could be the object of attention to an artist, a perfect
resemblance to the species represented, such as we see them at the
present day.
On examining the copies made by Kirker and Zoega, we find that,
without preserving every trait of the originals in its perfect
purity, they have given figures which are easily recognised. We
readily distinguish the ibis, the vulture, the owl, the falcon, the
Egyptian goose, the lapwing, the landrail, the aspic, the cerastes,
the Egyptian hare with its long ears, and even the hippopotamus; and,
among the numerous monuments engraved in the great work on Egypt, we
sometimes observe the rarest animals, the algazel, for example, which
was not seen in Europe until within these few years[83].
My learned colleague, M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, strongly convinced
of the importance of this research, carefully collected in the tombs
and temples of Upper and Lower Egypt as many mummies of animals as
he could. He has brought home cats, ibises, birds of prey, dogs,
monkeys, crocodiles, and the head of an ox, in this state; and there
is certainly no more difference to be perceived between these mummies
and the species of the same kind now alive, than between the human
mummies and the skeletons of men of the present day. A difference
may, indeed, be found between the mummies of the ibis and the bird
which naturalists have hitherto described under that name; but I have
cleared up all doubts on this matter, in a Memoir upon the Ibis,
which will be found at the end of this Essay, and in which I have
shewn that it is still at the present day the same as it was in the
time of the Pharaohs. I am aware that, in these, I only cite the
monuments of two or three thousand years; but this is the most remote
antiquity to which we can resort in such a case.
There is nothing, therefore, to be derived from all the facts
hitherto known, that could, in the slightest degree, give support
to the opinion that the new genera which I have discovered or
established among the fossil remains of animals, any more than those
which have in like manner been discovered or established by other
naturalists, the _palæotheria_, _anoplotheria_, _megalonyces_,
_mastodonta_, _pterodactyli_, _ichthyosauri_, &c. might have been
the sources of the present race of animals, which have only differed
from them through the influence of time or climate. Even if it should
prove true, which I am far from believing to be the case, that the
fossil elephants, rhinoceroses, elks, and bears, differ no more from
those at present existing, than the present races of dogs differ from
one another, this would not furnish a sufficient reason for inferring
the general identity of the species, because the races of dogs have
been subjected to the influence of domestication, which these other
animals neither did nor could experience.
Farther, when I maintain that the rocky beds contain the bones of
several genera, and the alluvial strata those of several species
which no longer exist, I do not assert that a new creation was
required for producing the species existing at the present day. I
only say that they did not originally inhabit the places where we
find them at present, and that they must have come from some other
part of the globe.
Let us suppose, for instance, that a great irruption of the sea were
now to cover the continent of New Holland with a coat of sand or
other debris; it would bury the carcases of animals belonging to the
genera _Kangurus_, _Phascolomys_, _Dasyurus_, _Perameles_, flying
phalanger, echidna, and ornithorynchus, and it would entirely destroy
the species of all these genera, since none of them exist now in any
other country.
Were the same revolution to lay dry the numerous narrow straits which
separate New Holland from the continent of Asia, it would open a
road to the elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, horses, camels, and
tigers, and to all the other Asiatic quadrupeds, which would come to
people a land where they had been previously unknown.
Were some future naturalist, after having made himself well
acquainted with this new race of animals, to search below the surface
on which they live, he would find remains of quite a different
nature.
What New Holland would be, under the circumstances which we have
supposed, Europe, Siberia, and a large portion of America, now
actually are. And, perhaps, when other countries shall have been
examined, and New Holland among the rest, it will one day be found
that they have experienced similar revolutions, I might almost say,
mutual changes, of productions. For, if we push the supposition
farther, and, after the supply of Asiatic animals to New Holland,
admit a second revolution, which destroyed Asia, their original
country, those naturalists who might observe them in New Holland,
their second country, would be equally at a loss to know whence
they had come, as we now are to find out the origin of the races of
animals that inhabit our own countries.
I now proceed to apply this manner of reasoning to the human species.
_Proofs that there are no Fossil Human Bones._
It is certain that no human bones have yet been found among fossil
remains; and this furnishes an additional proof that the fossil races
were not mere varieties of known species, since they could not have
been subjected to human influence.
When I assert that human bones have never been found among fossil
organic remains, (I must be understood to speak of fossils or
petrifactions, properly so called), or, in other words, in the
regular strata of the surface of the globe; for in peat-bogs
(_tourbières_), and alluvial deposits, as in burying-grounds, human
bones might as well be found as bones of horses, or other common
species. They might equally be found in fissures of rocks, and in
caverns, where they may have been covered over by stalactite; but in
the beds which contain the ancient races, among the _palæotheria_,
and even among the elephants and rhinoceroses, the smallest portion
of a human bone has never been discovered. Many of the labourers in
the gypsum quarries about Paris, believe that the bones which occur
so abundantly in them, are in a great part human; but I have seen
several thousands of these bones, and I may safely affirm that not
one of them has ever belonged to our species. I have examined at
Pavia the groups of bones brought by Spallanzani from the Island
of Cerigo; and, notwithstanding the assertion of that celebrated
observer, I equally affirm, that there is not one among them that
could be shewn to be human. The _homo diluvii testis_ of Scheuchzer
has been restored, in my first edition, to its true genus, which
is that of the salamanders; and, in a more recent examination of
it at Haarlem, allowed me by the politeness of Mr Van Marum, who
permitted me to uncover the parts enveloped in the stone, I obtained
complete proof of what I had before announced. Among the bones found
at Canstadt, the fragment of a jaw, and some articles of human
manufacture, were found; but it is known that the ground was dug up
without any precaution, and that no notes were taken of the different
depths at which each article was discovered. Every where else, the
fragments of bone alleged to be human, are found, on examination, to
belong to some animal, whether these fragments have been examined
themselves, or merely through the medium of figures. Very recently,
some were pretended to have been discovered at Marseilles, in a
quarry that had been long neglected;[84] but they have turned out to
be impressions of _tuyaux marines_.[85] Such real human bones as have
been exhibited as fossil, belonged to bodies that had fallen into
fissures, or had been left in the old galleries of mines, or that
had been incrusted; and I extend this assertion even to the human
skeletons discovered at Guadaloupe, in a rock formed of fragments of
madrepore, thrown up by the sea, and united by water impregnated
with calcareous matter.[86] The human bones found near Kœstriz, and
pointed out by M. de Schlotheim, had been announced as taken out of
very old beds; but this estimable naturalist is anxious to make known
how much this assertion is still subject to doubt.[87] The same has
been the case with the articles of human fabrication. The pieces of
iron found at Montmartre are fragments of the tools which the workmen
use for putting in blasts of gunpowder, and which sometimes break in
the stone[88].
Yet human bones preserve equally well with those of animals, when
placed in the same circumstances. In Egypt, no difference is remarked
between the mummies of men and those of quadrupeds. I picked up,
from the excavations made some years ago in the ancient church of St
Genevieve, human bones that had been interred below the first race,
which may even have belonged to some princes of the family of Clovis,
and which still retained their forms very perfectly[89]. We do not
find in ancient fields of battle that the skeletons of men are more
wasted than those of horses, except in so far as they may have been
influenced by size; and we find among fossil remains the bones of
animals as small as rats, still perfectly preserved.
Every circumstance, therefore, leads to the conclusion, that the
human species did not exist in the countries in which the fossil
bones have been discovered, at the epoch of the revolutions by which
these bones were covered up; for there cannot be a single reason
assigned, why men should have entirely escaped from such general
catastrophes, or why their remains should not be now found like those
of other animals. I do not presume, however, to conclude that man did
not exist at all before this epoch. He might then have inhabited some
narrow regions, whence he might have repeopled the earth after those
terrible events. Perhaps also, the places which he inhabited may have
been entirely swallowed up in the abyss, and his bones buried at the
bottom of the present seas, with the exception of a small number of
individuals, which have continued the species.
However this may be, the establishment of man in those countries in
which we have said that the fossil remains of land animals are found,
that is to say, in the greatest part of Europe, Asia, and America,
has necessarily been posterior, not only to the revolutions which
have covered up these bones, but also to those which have laid bare
the strata containing them, and which are the last that the globe
has undergone. Hence it clearly appears, that no argument in favour
of the antiquity of the human species in these different countries
can be derived either from those bones themselves, or from the more
or less considerable masses of rocks or of earthy materials by which
they are covered.
_Physical Proofs of the Newness of the Present Continents._
On the contrary, by a careful examination of what has taken place
on the surface of the globe, since it has been laid dry for the
last time, and its continents have assumed their present form, at
least in the parts that are somewhat elevated, it may be clearly
seen that this last revolution, and consequently the establishment
of our existing societies, could not have been very ancient. This
result is one of the best established, and, at the same time, one
of the least attended to in rational geology; and it is so much the
more valuable, that it connects natural and civil history in one
uninterrupted series.
When we measure the effects produced in a given time by causes still
acting, and compare them with those which the same causes have
produced since they have begun to act, we are enabled to determine
nearly the instant at which their action commenced; which is
necessarily the same as that in which our continents assumed their
present form, or that of the last sudden retreat of the waters.