consequence Professor Huxley never abandoned his attitude of reserve. On
the contrary, when, in 1880, he delivered an address to celebrate "the
Coming of Age of the _Origin of Species_" he discharged the task without
once mentioning Natural Selection, which is to that work as the Prince
of Denmark is to _Hamlet_.
But there is one passage in the said address, which deserves to be
specially remembered:
History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to
begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now
stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty
years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the
present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of
the _Origin of Species_, with as little reflection, and it may be
with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries,
twenty years ago, rejected them.
In 1886, Professor Romanes pronounced as follows:[236]
"At present it would be impossible to find any working naturalist who
supposes that survival of the fittest is competent to explain all the
phenomena of species-formation."
As to the actual position now occupied in Scientific opinion by Mr.
Darwin's hypotheses, we may content ourselves with the declaration of
Professor S. H. Vines in his Presidential address to the Linnean
Society, May 24, 1902.
1. It is established that Natural Selection, though it may have
perpetuated species, cannot have originated any.
2. It is still a mystery why Evolution should tend from the lower
to the higher, from simple to complex organisms.
3. The facts seem to admit of no other interpretation than that
variation is not [as Darwin supposed] indeterminate, but that there
is in living matter an inherent determination in favour of
variation in the higher direction.
That is to say, Darwin's _Origin of Species_ does not explain the Origin
of Species; and as to the laws which govern Evolution we can be sure
only that they are not those which he assigned.
In like manner, Sir Oliver Lodge pronounces:[237]
Take the origin of species by the persistence of favourable
variations; how is the appearance of these same favourable
variations accounted for? Except by artificial selection not at
all. Given their appearance, their development by struggle and
inheritance and survival can be explained; but that they arose
spontaneously, by random changes without purpose, is an assertion
which cannot be made.
We are thus in a position to form our own judgment as to the claim made
on behalf of Mr. Darwin, with which we started this chapter--namely,
that he has eliminated all mystery from the organic world by the
discovery of natural mechanical laws by which all its operations are
governed. It is, indeed, difficult to understand how Darwinists
themselves can suppose their system to make any such claim, for, as M.
Paul Vignon truly observes,[238] "La science darwinnienne s'imaginait
avoir triomphé du Sphinx, alors qu'elle avait simplement décomposé le
problème dans une monnaie d'énigmes moins rébarbatives en apparence." As
has been said, it is far more on account of the vast consequences
professedly based upon it, as a sure foundation stone, than for its own
sake, that it has seemed advisable to devote so much attention to the
study of Darwinism, quite apart from which the whole question of organic
Evolution still demands consideration.
It seems far more just to conclude with M. Fabre:[239]
Let us acknowledge that in truth we know nothing about anything, so
far as ultimate truths are concerned. Scientifically considered
nature is a riddle to which human curiosity can find no answer.
Hypothesis follows hypothesis, the ruins of theories are piled one
on another, but truth ever escapes us. To learn how to remain in
ignorance may well be the final lesson of wisdom.[240]
XVI
THE FACTS OF EVOLUTION
Leaving the field of speculation and "ætiology," we have now to enquire,
not to what causes organic Evolution may be attributable, but how far it
can be shewn to have actually occurred. This can be learnt only from the
history of life upon earth as disclosed by the evidence of palæontology,
or the geological record, and we are thus brought to the investigation
of that evidence, by which alone, as Professor Huxley agrees, can the
truth about Evolution be scientifically or satisfactorily established.
In his address recently mentioned on occasion of the twenty-first
birthday of the _Origin of Species_, having spoken of various advances
of our knowledge, as in comparative anatomy and embryology, which had
helped to win acceptance for transformist doctrines, he thus continued:
But all this remains mere secondary evidence. It may remove
dissent, but it does not compel assent. Primary and direct evidence
in favour of evolution can be furnished only by palæontology. The
geological record, so soon as it approaches completeness, must,
when properly questioned, yield either an affirmative or a
negative answer; if evolution has taken place, there will its mark
be left; if it has not taken place, there will be its refutation.
This is common sense. Evolution can claim to be a scientific truth, only
so far as clear evidence is forthcoming that Evolution there has been.
If the geological record be sufficiently complete to prove or disprove
its claims, the question is settled for ever. If, on the other hand, the
record be not complete enough for a conclusive verdict, it is, at least,
hard to understand the grounds of such a statement as that the doctrine
of Evolution has long since passed beyond the stage of discussion among
scientific thinkers;[241] or that of Professor Marsh, that to doubt
Evolution is to doubt Science; or of Professor Huxley himself[242]--"So
far as the animal world is concerned, Evolution is no longer a
speculation, but a matter of historical fact."
This historical enquiry is accordingly all-important, and it is one
which should be easy to undertake without any prepossessions, for it is
hard to see upon what _à priori_ grounds these could rest. That there
has been Evolution in one sense of the term is obvious,--that is to say,
development of organic types from lower to higher forms, from the
sea-weed or fungus to the oak or the rose, from the star-fish or the
coral-insect, to the eagle or to man. The question is, not whether there
has been such a progressive succession of forms, but whether one form
has proceeded from another _genetically_, being produced in the same
manner as individuals of a species now are. That this has been the case,
as Professor Huxley tells us in the same address, is the cornerstone of
evolutionary teaching. He appears indeed to restrict Evolution within
the limits of classes and groups, but such restriction is so contrary to
all his principles that the words which seem to imply it can scarcely be
taken as having any definite significance. Should the appearance of
different classes and groups require to be severally accounted for, we
should be landed back in the system of separate creations against which
he is never tired of inveighing.
The fundamental doctrine of all forms of the theory of evolution
applied to biology [he says] is that the innumerable species,
genera, and families of organic beings with which the world is
peopled have all descended, each within its own class or group,
from common parents, and have all been modified in the course of
descent.
And, holding as he does that palæontology furnishes the necessary
evidence, he thus continues:
And, in the view of the facts of geology, it follows that all
living animals and plants are the lineal descendants of those which
lived long before the Silurian epoch.
Here is a plain issue, and one, as has been said, to be discussed
without prejudice. That the innumerable forms of organic life should
thus have been genetically derived one from another, is no more
difficult to conceive than that they should have come into existence at
all. Moreover, it appears to our minds almost a first principle that
natural law must suffice to account for the phenomena of nature from
beginning to end, and that any system is self-condemned which finds
anywhere in these phenomena evidence of a non-natural, or supernatural,
interposition. Has not such a theologian as Suarez, following St.
Augustine, laid it down as an axiom[243] that God does not directly
interfere with the operations of Nature, when He can effect His purposes
through natural causes? Undoubtedly, too, it is difficult for our minds
to imagine in what way, except through genetic evolution, the successive
production of more and more developed types could be effected.
But, as has before been observed, what seems to us probable is not
therefore proved to be true. What we want are facts, and by facts we
must be ready to abide. At the same time, it is not very easy to
understand the supreme importance which evolutionists generally appear
to attach to the descent of all living creatures from some _one_
original, and their abhorrence of the idea that the power, whatever it
was, which first produced life, may have operated repeatedly, at
different epochs, to repeat the production. It seems to be assumed that
this must imply "miracle" and interruption of the continuity of Nature,
to admit which is irrational and unscientific. But since life did
unquestionably once originate somehow, which Science makes no attempt to
deny, why should it be so improper to suppose that it originated more
than once, at various times and in various forms, and that,
consequently, genetic descent with modification, or "Evolution," is not
the explanation of typic development? As Sir J. W. Dawson writes[244]
concerning the oyster tribe, whereof two species are found in the Coal
Measures (one European and the other American), and a continuous
succession of species ever since:
All these species may have proceeded from one origin, by descent
with modification, or, on the other hand, the same causes which led
to their origination in the Carboniferous may have operated again
and again.
It must, however, be remembered that, if the theory of genetic descent
with accumulation of minute modifications be the true explanation of the
production of new forms, it necessarily follows, that could a complete
record be forthcoming of the ancestry of any actual species, there would
be found in that pedigree no distinction of species or genera, for no
sharply marked lines of limitation would be discoverable. It would be
like the case of a man who had been photographed every hour of his life
from birth to old age;--immense though the difference might be between
the two extremes, the gradations of change would at all points pass as
imperceptibly into one another as do the phases of the moon. This
consideration is both fundamental and obvious, yet it would seem to be
almost universally ignored. It appears to be thought that, in order to
demonstrate the fact of evolution, all that is needed is to find a form
here and there, in some sense intermediate between others,--like the
reptilian birds already mentioned. This would imply that the course of
Evolution must be like that of an army, making long marches from point
to point, and traceable only by the remains of its camp-fires: whereas
it should be as that of a glacier continuously creeping on, and leaving
its tracks at one point as much as another. What are wanted, therefore,
as evidence for Evolution, are not isolated specific forms uniting some
characteristics of those which they are supposed to connect,--as
Nelson's men-of-war form a stepping-stone between the vessels of the
Norsemen and the ironclads of the present day,--but a series sufficient
to show, or at least to indicate, that all changes have been gradual and
insensible, without the introduction at any point of a new element. To
pursue the illustration, such a new element would be gunpowder or steam
in the evolution of the battle-ship, for by no mere development could
bows or javelins produce a cannon, or sailing ships a steamboat.
Therefore, in proportion as the geological record approaches
completeness, its testimony,--if it is to be in favour of
Evolution--must tend more and more in this direction, and unless, in
some instance at least, clear evidence be discoverable of the melting of
one form into another, it cannot possibly be said that we have
sufficient proof that such a process ever occurred. Mere graduated
resemblance of isolated forms does not necessarily imply such
transmutation, as we see for example in the methodical progression of
shape, exhibited by various crystals, and even more remarkably in the
affinities which we can recognize among what we know as elementary
substances.
There is another important point to be borne in mind. According to the
teaching of Evolutionists such as Darwin or Haeckel,[245] every Species
has originated from a single ancestor,--or, as they should rather say,
from a single pair.
If this were so, it would necessarily follow that every new form,
originating in some particular spot of earth, would very gradually
spread thence to other regions, fighting its way along. As Mr. Darwin
acknowledges,[246] "The development by this means (i.e. Natural
Selection) of a group of forms, all of which are descended from some one
progenitor, must have been an extremely slow process; and the
progenitors must have lived long before their modified descendants."
Of this gradual spread of new types there should, at least in some
cases, be some palæontological evidence.
It is likewise by no means easy to understand how species thus generated
could stand solitary and isolated from kindred forms in the records of
the earth. The pair of individuals which started a new persistent
group,--its members all stamped with the same specific characters, while
all around were in a state of flux and divergence,--differed from their
immediate ancestors, as we have seen, only infinitesimally. They can
have differed no more from many of their contemporaries, for all the
lines of descent must ramify afresh in each generation, and so form a
web rather than anything like a line. It is not very easy to understand
how a pair here and there struck root and founded a species, while the
thousands which jostled them round about failed to do so, for the others
which survived longest must be supposed to have resembled them most
nearly, and therefore to have participated in their advantages. At
least, we should expect to find around them the débris of the multitude
they vanquished in the struggle for existence.
We are told, moreover, that, with hardly an exception, the organic forms
found in a fossil state must be supposed to be the last of their
special line of development, which terminated in them; so that neither
can they be claimed as the direct ancestors of any other forms, fossil
or living, nor can any others which are actually known be claimed as
their progenitors. The genealogies supplied for almost all known
species, extinct or existing, are admittedly conjectural, and as in the
most famous instance of all, namely the supposed common ancestor of
simians and men, the links are persistently "missing." Thus M. de
Quatrefages, speaking of the human pedigree as set forth by Professor
Haeckel, writes thus:[247]
All species, existing or extinct, are said to have been preceded by
_ancestral forms_ which have disappeared without leaving the
slightest vestige behind them. The _amphioxus_ itself, which more
than any other realizes the type of the group it represents, was
preceded, according to Haeckel, by the _provertebrate_, which no
man has ever seen, but of which, nevertheless, the Jena professor
gives us a figure, and describes the anatomy.
Thus the number of forms postulated by the theory of genetic Evolution,
must have been enormous beyond conception, in comparison with those
belonging to the numerically insignificant groups which formed the mere
extremities of branches on the genealogical tree.
This being premised, we must ask what Geology has to tell us on the
subject, and it will be well to begin by briefly recalling the main
features of the geological record.
* * * * *
The stratified rocks comprising the crust of the earth, in which fossil
plants and animals are found embedded, have evidently been formed at
successive periods, chiefly by the agency of water, each formation
having begun as a sediment like the mud or ooze at the bottom of our
oceans and seas. Geological investigation has proved that the
chronological order of the strata thus deposited can be satisfactorily
determined, and they are found to divide themselves, in respect of the
organisms they contain, into three great series, lying above the _Azoic_
(or lifeless) rocks, older than them all.
These series, beginning from the bottom, in which order we shall have to
trace their history, are most conveniently named _Primary_, _Secondary_,
and _Tertiary_, otherwise termed respectively, _Paloeozoic_ ("ancient
life"), _Mesozoic_ ("middle life"), and _Kainozoic_ ("recent life").
Each of these again, contains various formations, or as we may call them
volumes of its chronicle, each of which has its fixed place in order of
sequence.
Thus, always proceeding from below upwards, in the _Primary_ series,
commencing with the _Laurentian_, we find successively the _Huronian_,
_Cambrian_, _Silurian_, _Devonian_ or _Old Red Sandstone_,
_Carboniferous_, and _Permian_.
In the _Secondary_, the lowest formation is the _Triassic_ or _New Red
Sandstone_, followed by the _Jurassic_ or _Oolite_, and the _Cretaceous_
or _Chalk_.
Finally the _Tertiary_ has three main divisions; the _Eocene_, or "dawn
of the recent," _Miocene_, or "less recent," and _Pliocene_, or "more
recent."
Above these comes the series now in progress, variously called,
_Quaternary_, _Post-Tertiary_, and _Pleistocene_, or "most recent."
* * * * *
It seems advisable to begin our investigation with the vegetable
kingdom, as its classification being comparatively simple, the essential
points of its development are easily followed. We cannot do better than
start with the summary of its main divisions furnished by Mr.
Carruthers.[248]
The vegetable kingdom is divided into sections, according to the
simplicity or complexity of structure. Associated with plants of
simple structure we find, as a rule, more elementary organs of
reproduction. Linnaeus made two great divisions, of flowering
(_Phanerogams_) and flowerless plants (_Cryptogams_).... The higher
group have flowers, with their stamens and pistils, which produce
seeds, while the lower group are without flowers and bear spores,
which are much simpler bodies than seeds. There are seven main
groups of spore-bearers--the _algæ_ or water-weeds; the _fungi_ or
mushroom family; the _lichens_, which cover old walls and rocks
with patches of coloured vegetation; the _mosses_ with their green
leaves and urn-shaped fruit; the _ferns_ with their large and
usually much-divided leaves, on the back or edges of which the
spores are borne; the _horsetails_, found in wet places, having
jointed hollow stems and spores produced in little cones; and the
_club-mosses_, upright or creeping leafy plants found on our
mountains. These seven groups may be arranged in two divisions,
according to the tissues of which they are formed. In the first
four the whole plant is composed of _cells_, while in the last
three a firm _vascular skeleton_ is present. These characters are
of great importance to the student of fossil plants.... The
flowering plants are more complex in their structure, and in their
organs of reproduction. The lowest group of these plants is the
_Gymnosperms_, or naked-seeded plants, like our yews and pines. The
other flowering plants (_Angiosperms_) have their seeds in a closed
fruit. These are divided into two sections from characters derived
from the embryo plant in the seed, depending on whether this minute
plant has one seed-leaf (_cotyledon_) or two, and so we have
_Monocotyledons_ and _Dicotyledons_. The higher group, or
dicotyledons, have been arranged into three divisions, according to
the complexity of the flower. In one large group (_Apetalae_) the
pistil and stamens are not surrounded by petals, e.g. in the oak
and the stinging nettle: superior to them are the plants
(_Monopetalae_) in which the petals form a cup, as the
blue-bell[249] and the gentian, while the highest group
(_Polypetalae_) have all the petals separate, as the buttercups and
roses.[250]
It is most important to recollect that on evolutionary principles the
first representatives of any such classes--and the same holds of animals
as well--must have been generalized forms, representing the type in the
rough, or, in Mr. Herbert Spencer's phrase, exhibiting by comparison
with their successors indefinite incoherent homogeneity, as contrasted
with definite coherent heterogeneity. They should bear the same sort of
relation to the finished articles worked up by Evolution as did the
first bone-shaker bicycle to our latest patterns, or the news-sheets of
Cromwell's time to the _Times_ or _Graphic_ of to-day. On this, as we
saw in the last chapter, Mr. Darwin strongly insists, confessing at the
same time that the Geological record alone can establish such progress
as a fact.
How these various classes of plants appear actually to have come upon
the scene, Mr. Carruthers relates both in the paper from which we have
just quoted, and at greater length in the address which he delivered as
President of the Geologists' Association,[251] to the following effect.
In the first place, he declares that although the geological record, at
least as known to us, is very imperfect, and represents only an
insignificant fragment of plant-history,
There is a large series of plant-remains completely and accurately
known which supply a fair representation of the great events of
plant-life that have taken place on the earth since Palæozoic
times. And these are more than sufficient to establish or destroy
this hypothesis [of genetic evolution] by their testimony.
There is--he goes on to say--indirect evidence of the existence of
vegetable life, long before we find any actual remains. Such indirect
evidence is afforded in the first place by the abundance during this
period of animal life, needing plants for its sustenance, and secondly
by the enormous quantity of carbon in the rocks, which must have been
secreted from the atmosphere by vegetable tissues. There are also
certain surface marks or impressions occasionally to be found, which are
probably due to plants of a soft and perishable character like the
cellular cryptogams, and which although extremely vague and undefined,
at least do not contradict the evolutionist, who regards them as
evidence that the _Algæ_ were, as according to him they ought to have
been, the primeval plants. Mr. Carruthers adds a caution however, which
can find its application in other instances as well:
While making this admission in relation to the vegetation of these
older rocks, I must protest against the practice of completing the
record of life forms, by filling in particular groups without any
authority except the writer's impression of an adopted hypothesis,
and then basing arguments on these assumptions in support of the
hypothesis which created them. So completely has
VEGETABLE DEVELOPMENT.
+----------------------------------------------------+
| Post Tertiary.| |
+----------------------------------------------------+
Tertiary. {| Pliocene. | |
+----------------------------------------------------+
{| Miocene. | |
+----------------------------------------------------+
{| Eocene. | |
+----------------------------------------------------+
Secondary. {| Chalk. | Dicotyledons (Apetalæ, Polypetalæ, |
{| | Sympetalæ). |
+----------------------------------------------------+
{| Oolite. | |
+----------------------------------------------------+
{| Trias. | |
+----------------------------------------------------+
| | |
{| Permian. | |
+----------------------------------------------------+
{| Carboniferous.| Monocotyledons. |
+----------------------------------------------------+
{| | |
{| Devonian, or | Clubmosses, Horsetails, Ferns, |
{| Old Red | Gymnosperms. |
{| Sandstone. | |
+----------------------------------------------------+
Primary. {| Silurian. | } Cellular Cryptogams. |
{| Cambrian. | } |
+----------------------------------------------------+
{| Huronian. | } Indications of Plants, |
{| Laurentian. | } not determinable. |
+===================+================================+
| AZOIC. | |
phylogenetic [or racial] evolution become the creed of some leading
naturalists that they unwittingly proceed in this manifestly
unphilosophical method. But it is a first axiom, though one often
forgotten, in this as in every scientific enquiry, that no step can
be made in advance which is not based on fact.
After this initial stage, the story becomes much clearer, and at the
same time less easy to reconcile with evolutionary requirements.
Instead of making their appearance singly and successively, and passing
imperceptibly one into another, all three groups of Vascular Cryptogams,
and the Gymnosperms into the bargain, come on the stage together, in the
Devonian strata; and Monocotyledons in the lower Carboniferous
immediately following. There is no trace whatever of the development of
any of these forms from the earlier cellular cryptogams:
But [says Mr. Carruthers] the evolution of the Vascular Cryptogams,
and the Phanerogams, from the green seaweeds, through the
liverworts and mosses, if it took place, must have been carried on
through a long succession of ages, and by an innumerable series of
advancing steps; and yet we find not a single trace either of the
early water forms or of the later and still more numerous dry-land
forms. The conditions that permitted the preservation of the
fucoids in the Llandovery rocks at Malvern, and of similar cellular
organisms elsewhere, were, at least, fitted to preserve _some_
record of the necessarily rich floras, if they existed, which
through immense ages, led by minute steps to the Conifer
[_Gymnosperm_] and Monocotyledon of these Palæozoic Rocks.
Further, these earliest plants are not generalized forms of the
various tribes to which they belong, but they are as highly
specialized as any subsequent representatives of the particular
group to which they belong, and wherever they differ from later
plants, it is in the possession of a more perfect organization.
* * * * *
From all which facts Mr. Carruthers thus argues:
The complete absence of intermediate forms, and the sudden and
contemporaneous appearance of highly organized and widely separated
groups, deprive the hypothesis of genetic evolution of any
countenance from the plant-record of these ancient rocks. The whole
evidence is against evolution, and there is none for it.[252]
Dicotyledons furnish evidence of especial value. On account of their
higher organization, they are easily distinguished from both
Monocotyledons and Gymnosperms; and they present features which clearly
differentiate them amongst themselves. They did not make their entry
till after a long interval--and their remains are therefore to be found
in strata comparatively recent and better known to us than those of the
older rocks. It is in the Chalk, the newest of the Secondary or Mesozoic
formations, that they first exhibit themselves, and they do it in the
same fashion as their predecessors.
When the Dicotyledons appear in the upper cretaceous beds,
representatives of the three great groups [_Apetalæ_, _Monopetalæ_,
_Polypetalæ_] appear together in the same deposit. Moreover, these
divisions are represented, not by generalized types, but by
differentiated forms, which, during the intervening epochs, have not
developed even into higher generic groups.
* * * * *
And, here again, there is no vestige of intermediate species, linking
dicotyledonous plants with other types.
No trace of a plant belonging to this great division has yet been
detected in any earlier stratum [than the upper chalk]. There is no
evidence whatever for Haeckel's statement that the _Apetalæ_
probably existed in the Triassic and Jurassic periods.... It cannot
be doubted that the conditions favourable to the preservation of
Monocotyledons and Equisetums would have secured the preservation
of some of the _Apetalæ_, had they existed. This absence can be
accounted for only on the supposition that they formed no part of
the then existing vegetation. And in the deposits older than the
Trias, or in any subsequent deposits, no intermediate form has been
detected,--no Gymnosperm or Monocotyledon which exhibits in any
point of its structure a modification towards the more highly
organized Dicotyledon.
* * * * *
Nor, on the same authority, is this all.
It is equally important in its bearing on the hypothesis of genetic
evolution that the generic groups above named have persisted from
the first known appearance of Dicotyledons, throughout the whole of
the intervening ages, and still hold their places unchanged among
the existing forms of vegetation. The persistence of generic and
specific types, and the certain knowledge we possess of the life of
many existing species of Phanerogams and Cryptogams which have come
down through the Glacial Epoch, have not been sufficiently
considered in their bearing on the hypothesis.
We have already seen something of an example which illustrates this
point in a remarkable manner,--that of _Salix polaris_, the willow which
has so obstinately preserved its specific identity amid great stress of
circumstances. It belongs to a very variable genus--one in which if
anywhere evidence of genetic development might be looked for. Yet it is
found that since a period prior to the great Ice Age, or Glacial epoch,
it has remained absolutely unchanged. At such a rate, we cannot but ask,
how long would Evolution take to get back to the generalized type-form,
or common ancestor, of the genus _Salix_, and then to that of the Order
_Salicineae_, which includes poplars as well as willows. "The Ordinal
form, if it ever existed, must necessarily be much older than the period
of the upper Cretaceous rocks, that is than the period to which the
earliest known Dicotyledons belong."
And it is obvious that when we had got back to the parental stock of the
willow tribe, we should still, as evolutionists, be separated by a gulf
still vastly greater from the common ancestor of all Dicotyledons, of
oaks, apple-trees, primroses, and daisies no less than of willows and
poplars.
The significance of all these various facts is thus summed up:
The whole evidence supplied by fossil plants is, then, opposed to
the hypothesis of genetic evolution, and especially the sudden and
simultaneous appearance of the most highly organized plants at
particular stages in the past history of the globe, and the entire
absence amongst fossil plants of any forms intermediate between
existing classes or families. The facts of palæontological botany
are opposed to Evolution, but they testify to Development, to
progression from lower to higher types. The cellular Algæ preceded
the Vascular Cryptogams and the Gymnosperms of the Newer Palæozoic
rocks, and these were speedily followed by Monocotyledons, and, at
a much later period, by Dicotyledons. But the earliest
representatives of these various sections of the vegetable kingdom
were not generalized forms, but as highly organized as recent
forms, and in many cases more highly organized: and the divisions
were as clearly bounded in their essential characters, and as
decidedly separated from each other as they are at the present day.
So much for the vegetable world. As for the animal, although the number
and complexity of its divisions makes it less easy to present so
complete a sketch in these moderate limits, the features of its history
are very similar. As Sir J. W. Dawson recounts it:[253]
ANIMAL DEVELOPMENT.
+----------------------------------------------------+
| Post Tertiary. | Man and Modern Mammals. |
+----------------------------------------------------+
{ | Pliocene. | |
{ +----------------------------------------------------+
Tertiary. { | Miocene. | |
{ +-------------------+--------------------------------+
{ | Eocene. | Placental Mammals (Ungulates, |
{ | | Unguiculates, Rodents, |
{ | | Whales, Bats). |
+-------------------+--------------------------------+
{ | Chalk. | |
{ +-------------------+--------------------------------+
Secondary.{ | Oolite. | Birds. |
{ +-------------------+--------------------------------+
{ | Trias. | Marsupial Mammals. |
+-------------------+--------------------------------+
{ | Permian. | Reptiles (various orders). |
{ +-------------------+--------------------------------+
{ | Carboniferous. | |
{ +-------------------+--------------------------------+
{ | Devonian, or | Millipeds, Insects, Spiders, |
{ | Old Red Sandstone.| Scorpions, Fish, Batrachians, |
{ | | etc. |
{ +-------------------+--------------------------------+
Primary. { | Silurian. | |
{ +-------------------+--------------------------------+
{ | Cambrian. | Shell Fish, Sponges, Molluscs, |
{ | | Crustaceans, Worms, etc. |
{ +-------------------+--------------------------------+
{ | Huronian. | } |
{ +-------------------+--}-----------------------------|
{ | Laurentian. | } Protozoa. |
+===================+================================+
| AZOIC. | |
In the Cambrian age, we obtain a vast and varied accession of living
things, which appear at once, as if by a sudden and simultaneous
production of many kinds of animals. Here we find evidence that the sea
swarmed with creatures near akin to those which still inhabit it, and
nearly as varied.... Had we been able to drop our dredge into the
Cambrian or Silurian ocean, we should have brought up representatives of
all the leading types of invertebrate life that exist in the modern
seas--different, it is true, in details of structure from those now
existing, but constructed on the same principles, and filling the same
places in nature.
In the latter half of the Palæozoic we find a number of higher forms
breaking upon us with the same apparent suddenness as in the case of the
early Cambrian animals. Fishes appear, and soon abound in a great
variety of species, representing types of no mean rank, but, singularly
enough, belonging in many cases to groups now very rare; while the
commoner tribes of modern fish do not appear. On the land, Batrachian
Reptiles now abound, some of them very high in the sub-class to which
they belong. Scorpions, spiders, insects, and millipedes appear as well
as land-snails: and this not in one locality only, but over the whole
northern hemisphere.... Nor do they show any signs of an unformed or
imperfect state.... The compound eyes and filmy wings of insects, the
teeth, bones, and scales of batrachians and fishes; all are as perfectly
finished, and many quite as complex and elegant, as the animals of the
present day.
This wonderful Palæozoic age was, however, but a temporary state of the
earth. It passed away, and was replaced by the Mesozoic, emphatically
the age of Reptiles, when animals of that type attained to colossal
magnitude, to variety of function and structure, to diversity of habitat
in sea and on land, altogether unexampled in their degraded descendants
of modern times.... Strangely enough, with these reptilian lords
appeared a few small and lowly mammals, forerunners of the coming
age.[254] Birds also made their appearance.
The Kainozoic, or Tertiary, is the age of Mammals and of Man. In it the
great reptilian tyrants of the Mesozoic disappear, and are replaced on
land and sea by mammals or beasts of the same orders with those now
living, though differing as to genera and species. So greatly indeed did
mammalian life abound in this period that in the middle part of the
Tertiary most of the leading groups were represented by more numerous
species than at present, while many types then existing
have now no representatives. At the close of this great and
wonderful procession of living beings comes Man himself--the last
and crowning triumph of creation the head, thus far, of life on the
earth.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING THE PROGRESS OF ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT.
In the above Diagram the progress of Organic Development, as manifested
in higher and higher types, is indicated by the increasing divergence of
new forms from primitive simplicity of structure, represented by the
medium line separating the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
The _Supposed line of continuous Evolution,_ indicates the gradual
course which should be taken by Development, on Darwinian or Spencerian
principles, by accumulation of minute differences in successive
generations, as contrasted with the abrupt and simultaneous appearance
of highly differentiated types, as spoken of by palæontologists.
[_To face page 227._]]
It must be sufficient to quote one other remark:[255]
There is no direct evidence that in the course of geological time
one species has been gradually or suddenly changed into another....
On the other hand, we constantly find species replaced by others
entirely new, and this without any transition. The two classes of
facts are essentially different, though often confounded by
evolutionists; and though it is possible to point out in the newer
geological formations some genera and species allied to others
which have preceded them, and to suppose that the later forms
proceeded from the earlier, still, as the connecting links cannot
be found, this is mere supposition, not scientific certainty.
Further, it proceeds on the principle of arbitrary choice of
certain forms out of many, without any evidence of genetic
connexion.
Having given a tabular view of Geological periods and Life-epochs,
similar to those presented above, our author remarks:[256]
If in the table above we were to represent diagrammatically the
development of animals and plants, this would appear not as a
smooth and continuous stream, but as a series of great waves, each
rising abruptly, and then descending and flowing on at a lower
level along with the remains of those preceding it.
And here may be noticed an observation made amongst others by the Comte
de Saporta[257] on the remarkable parallelism of Animal and Vegetable
development. After a period in which these kingdoms were respectively
represented by aquatic _Algæ_ and _Protozoa_, land animals and land
plants appear to have come in much at the same epoch; and afterwards
dicotyledonous plants immediately preceded the advent of mammals.
Mr. Mivart is of like mind with the others we have heard. "The mass of
palæontological evidence," he writes,[258] "is indeed overwhelmingly
against minute and gradual modification." He points out, with the _North
British_ Reviewer so frequently quoted, that had the later forms of life
descended from the earlier, through such a series of imperceptible
gradations as is imagined, the probability would be that no two fossil
specimens would be exactly alike, whereas in fact numbers are found of
certain particular patterns, and none whatever between them, fossil
animals and plants falling naturally into species, genera, families, and
other categories just like those of the present day.
It is this total absence of graduated series, linking different forms
together, that is the great and fundamental difficulty in the way of
genetic evolution. Yet this seems very seldom to be realized, and it
seems constantly to be assumed that in order to establish the genetic
continuity of two creatures no more is required than to discover
another standing more or less between them. Thus in the most famous of
all instances, how often do we hear of "the missing link" between man
and ape,--as though should a generalized form be disclosed, which might
be considered a common ancestor, the question of man's simian origin
would be finally settled. In the same way, as we have seen, the
existence of birds with reptilian features, is taken by some as
conclusive proof that birds and reptiles have descended from one stock.
But what is most imperatively wanted, is persistently wanting,--namely
some evidence of a series in which one form passes to another, as in a
dissolving view. And yet, genetic evolutionists must suppose such series
to have been the universal rule throughout the whole course of life on
earth.
Assuredly [writes M. de Quatrefages][259] is it not singularly
unfortunate for the evolutionary theory that so many facts which
tell against it should have been preserved in the scraps of
Nature's great book which remain to us, and that invariably those
which would have told in its favour were recorded in lost volumes
and missing leaves?
In some particular instances the absence of any trace of intermediate
forms is especially significant. The tribe of Bats, for instance, is a
very singular one. The wings, in which form the fore-limbs are
specialized, represent the same elements as our own hands; and other
modifications of the same members have produced the paws of cats and
dogs, the hoofs of horses and cattle, and the flippers of whales and
porpoises,--to mention no others. What countless hosts of the Bat's
ancestors must have lived and died while by accumulation of minute
differences the primitive generalized limb whence all these diverse
forms originated, was being turned into a wing capable of flight. Yet of
all these no vestige is to be discovered. "Whenever the remains of bats
have been found," says Mr. Mivart,[260] "they have presented the exact
type of existing forms." The same, he tells us, holds good of other
flying creatures--birds and pterodactyles--(or flying lizards--now
wholly extinct). No trace of any of these is forthcoming while their
wings were in the making. "Yet had such a slow mode of origin as
Darwinians [and genetic evolutionists generally] contend for, operated
exclusively in all cases, it is absolutely incredible that bats, birds,
and pterodactyles should have left the remains they have, and yet not a
single relic be preserved in any one instance of any of these different
forms of wing in their incipient and relatively imperfect functional
condition!"
There are other creatures which stand in solitary isolation, with no
fragments of a bridge to connect them with the general body. Such is the
rattlesnake's family, whose pedigree, Mr. Mivart declares,[261] we
cannot even imagine--"The ancestors of the rattlesnake are beyond our
mental vision."
But the number of forms [says the same author][262] represented by
many individuals, yet by _no transitional ones_, is so great that
only two or three can be selected as examples. Thus those
remarkable fossil reptiles, the Icthyosauria and Plesiosauria,
extended, through the secondary period, probably over the greater
part of the globe. Yet no single transitional form has yet been met
with in spite of the multitudinous individuals preserved. Again,
with their modern representatives the Cetacea, one or two aberrant
forms alone have been found, but no series of transitional ones
indicating minutely the line of descent. This group, the whales, is
a very marked one, and it is curious, on Darwinian principles, that
so few instances tending to indicate its mode of origin should have
presented themselves. Here, as in the bats, we might surely expect
that some relics of unquestionably incipient stages of its
development would have been left.
Professor W. C. Williamson likewise remarks[263] on these _lacunæ_ which
persistently occur at crucial points:
If [he writes] these generic types [of plants] first came before us
in such clearly defined forms, when and where did the transitional
states make their appearance? The extreme evolutionists constantly
affirm of those who believe in special creation that they
"habitually suppose the origination to occur in some region remote
from human observation," and that "the conception survives only in
connexion with imagined places where the order of organic phenomena
is unknown." It is legitimate to retort upon them that they as
habitually resort to "strata now covered by the sea"--to rocks
"from which all traces of such fossils as they probably included
have been obliterated by igneous action," and to mysterious
"migrations from pre-existing continents to continents that were
step by step emerging from the ocean." Unfortunately, so far as the
vegetable kingdom is concerned, we have as yet failed to discover
any traces of these mysterious strata or hypothetical continents in
which the transitions from one plant-type to another were being
brought about. The believers in special creations are not the only
reasoners who have made free use of hypothetical possibilities.
He presently adds:
We have no evidence that unaided Nature has produced a single new
type during the historic period. We can only conclude that the
wonderful outburst of genetic activity which characterized the
Tertiary age was due to some unknown factor, which then operated
with an energy to which the earth was a stranger, both previously
and subsequently. The knowledge of this factor is what we need in
order to perfect our philosophy; and until we obtain that
knowledge, many things must remain unaccounted for, so far as
primeval vegetation is concerned.
And elsewhere Professor Williamson reiterates the same idea:[264]
I contend stoutly [he says] that, however numerous may be the facts
that sustain the doctrine of evolution (and I am prepared to admit
that there are many that do so in a remarkable manner), this
unexplained outburst of new life demands the recognition of some
factor not hitherto admitted into the calculations of the
evolutionist school.
In the record of fossil fishes he finds some features which are
particularly hard to harmonize with any theory of genetic
evolution.[265] Amongst the very earliest representatives of this class,
even in the upper Silurian, are found remains of sharks, in his opinion
the highest order of fish, and in the Devonian and Carboniferous above,
of _Ganoids_ armour clad, like the sturgeon. But nowhere below the Chalk
do we find a single scale of _Cycloids_ or _Ctenoids_, which in regard
alike of the scales themselves, of the nervous system and of the
reproductive organs, are much below the sharks, and not above the
_Ganoids_. To complicate matters still more, however, the skeleton of
_Cycloids_ and _Ctenoids_ is more highly organized than that of the
others, and it is thus equally impossible to describe them as
progressive or as retrogressive types.[266]
Over and above this absence of intermediate or link forms, the witnesses
who have been cited insist on the fact that those earliest found are
not simple or generalized representatives of their respective types, as
the theory of genetic evolution requires them to be, but are as
perfectly finished and specialized as those appearing in later ages. To
their testimony on this point may be added that of Professor Huxley, who
while frankly confessing that he would be glad enough to find evidence
in favour of such progressive modification, was constrained by his love
of scientific truth to bear witness as follows:[267]
The only safe and unquestionable testimony we can procure--positive
evidence--fails to demonstrate any sort of progressive modification
towards a less embryonic, or less generalized type, in a great many
groups of animals of long-continued geological existence. In these
groups there is abundant evidence of variation--none of what is
generally understood as progression; and if the known geological
record is to be regarded as even any considerable fragment of the
whole, it is inconceivable that any theory of a necessarily
progressive development can stand, for the numerous orders and
families cited afford no trace of such a process.
So again he declared at a later period[268] summarizing what he had said
previously:
In answer to the question, What does an impartial survey of the
positively ascertained truths of palæontology testify in relation
to the common doctrines of progressive modification?... I reply: It
negatives these doctrines; for it either shows us no evidence of
such modification, or demonstrates such modification as has
occurred to have been very slight; and as to the nature of that
modification, it yields no evidence whatsoever that the earliest
members of a long-existing group were more generalized in structure
than the later ones.
He went on, however, to say, on this latter occasion, that discoveries
made in the interval afforded much ground for softening "the Brutus-like
severity" which eight years before he had exhibited in this regard, by
disclosing such evidence as he had declared to be lacking. From the
samples, however, which he produced, it does not appear that this fresh
testimony comes to very much; and in view of the observations with which
he accompanied the exposition, it would seem that in only one instance
did it appear to himself thoroughly satisfactory.
Every fossil [he said][269] which takes an intermediate place
between forms of life already known, may be said, so far as it is
intermediate, to be evidence in favour of Evolution, inasmuch as it
shows a possible road by which Evolution may have taken place. But
the mere discovery of such a form does not, in itself, prove that
Evolution took place by and through it, nor does it constitute
more than presumptive evidence in favour of Evolution in general.
It is easy[270] to accumulate probabilities--hard to make out some
particular case in such a way that it will stand rigorous
criticism. After much search, however, I think that such a case is
to be made out in favour of the pedigree of the Horse.
Of this famous instance we have already heard, and since it will be
examined at length in the following chapter, we will not dwell further
upon it here.
So obvious indeed is this deficiency for evolutionary requirements of
the Geological record, that Professor Haeckel attempts to supply the
want by boldly interpolating a number of periods during which the
metamorphoses occurred, but of which no record was left. He assumes that
between the epochs of depression, when fossils were deposited beneath
the water, there were other epochs of elevation when the land was dry
and no deposits could occur, and he supposes that the abrupt changes of
flora and fauna exhibited by successive formations, are due to the lapse
of time of which we have no organic record in what he styles these
"Ante-periods."
As to this summary mode of loosing the Gordian knot, it will be
sufficient to quote Professor Huxley's verdict: "I confess this is
wholly incredible to me."[271] And although in his favourable review of
Haeckel's book[272] he showed himself far more tolerant of gratuitous
speculations, than his utterances on other occasions might have led us
to expect, upon this point he declared: "I fundamentally and entirely
disagree with Professor Haeckel."
We may sum up the testimonies of which the above are representative in
the words of two authorities by no means hostile to Evolution. M. Edmond
Perrier,[273] having shewn how this theory is suggested by the
successive developments of type, and how the phenomena of organic life
seem to harmonize with it, thus continues:
Unfortunately, when we descend to details, such palæontological
gaps present themselves that every sort of objection is possible.
The chain which morphology has allowed us to piece together is
continually snapped when we essay to travel back into the past....
The art of distinguishing realities from phantoms of the
imagination is what has made modern science so great and so mighty.
She is strong enough to win honour by avowing ignorance, and
because men see her always determined to speak the truth, they
gradually realize that she is not dangerous.
And in his Presidential address to the Linnean Society, May 24, 1902,
Professor S. H. Vines thus expressed himself as to the genealogical
table of organic life, which ever since the doctrine of Evolution was
accepted, it has been sought to construct:
Though here and there fragments of the mosaic seem to have been
successfully pieced together, the main outlines, even, of the great
picture are as yet but dimly discernible.
The fact that organic Evolution should have proceeded so far as it
has within such limits of time as may reasonably be allowed,
admits, to my mind, of no other interpretation than that variation
is not indeterminate, but, as Lamarck and Nägeli have urged, there
must exist in living matter a certain inherent tendency or bias in
favour of variation in the higher direction. It is this tendency or
bias that I venture to regard as the primordial factor.
But it is precisely such an inherent tendency of organic life to develop
on predetermined lines, which Darwinians and other advocates of
Evolution by the agency of physical forces alone, vehemently repudiate
as fatal to their whole system.
[Since Professor Williamson wrote, the opinion has been adopted
that for the very reason which induced him to place the Sharks
above the _Cycloids_ and _Ctenoids_, their relative positions
should be reversed. The Sharks being a more "generalized" type,
with features more akin to those of land-dwelling reptiles, and the
others more "specialized" for purely aquatic conditions, the
latter, it is argued, are a higher evolutionary product. As a
necessary corollary it is assumed that vertebrate life originated,
not, as had been supposed, in the sea, but in swamps or lagoons on
the shore-line. It must, however, remain a question how far the
facility with which theories can thus be modified according to
requirements, is calculated to inspire confidence in them.]
XVII
"AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM"
We have heard Mr. Carruthers' declaration, based upon his survey of
palæontological botany, "The whole evidence is against Evolution, and
there is none in favour of it."
Remarkably enough, at almost the same period[274] Professor Huxley
concluded a discussion of palæontological evidence with a precisely
contrary pronouncement--"The whole evidence is in favour of Evolution,
and there is none against it." On other occasions, also, he distinctly
maintained that it is just this line of enquiry which conclusively
establishes Evolution as no longer a theory, but an historical fact. To
such a conclusion, he tells us,[275] "an acute and critical-minded
investigator is led by the facts of palæontology;"--and, again, "If the
doctrine of Evolution had not existed, palæontologists must have
invented it, so irresistibly is it forced upon the mind by the study of
the remains of the Tertiary mammalia."
Such declarations clearly challenge consideration, especially when it
is remembered how strict were the views which Professor Huxley professed
as to the necessity of proofs for our beliefs,--"that it is wrong for a
man to say he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition
unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that
certainty."[276]
We therefore turn naturally to his lectures on Evolution, wherein he
treats the palæontological argument _ex professo_, and we find that his
verdict is based upon a few selected instances, such as that of the
reptilian birds already mentioned, which he considers favourable to
Evolution, and one which he terms _demonstrative_,--namely that of the
Horse. This he treats in some detail; in regard of it he delivers the
positive judgment which we have just heard, and it therefore in a
special manner demands our attention.
As furnishing evidence for the history of the horse, two features are of
special importance, his limbs, and his teeth. Of these we may confine
our attention to the former, as being, at once, sufficient for our
purpose, and within the scope of ordinary observation.
The horse family, or _Equidae_, belong to the tribe of Ungulates, or
hoofed animals, some points of whose anatomy require to be considered in
relation to our own.
Taking first the fore-limbs. What we call the "knee" of a horse is in
reality the wrist,--the true knee, or rather elbow, being what we call
the "shoulder." Below the knee comes the "cannon bone," corresponding to
the middle bone of the hand, and below it the "pastern," "coronary," and
"coffin" bones, representing the joints of the solitary middle-finger,
while the hoof is its greatly enlarged and thickened nail. Similarly, in
the hind-limbs; the "hock" is veritably the ankle, and again the lateral
digits are suppressed, the middle toe alone remaining.
It thus appears that an Ungulate such as the horse, is an extreme
modification of the general Mammalian plan, his members being highly
specialized for a certain kind of work. His leg and hoof, as the theory
of genetic Evolution declares, have been gradually fashioned to their
present shape from an original limb in the common Mammalian ancestor,
which by other modifications has equally produced the totally different
members possessed by other mammals.
That the horse is descended from a race bearing more than one digit on
each extremity, seems to be indicated by the splint-bones which are
found on the cannon-bone of both fore and hind legs, and which represent
the second and fourth finger and toe, and also by recorded occurrences
of polydactyle horses, one of which has a distinguished place in history
as Julius Cæsar's charger.[277]
That the animal as we now know him is the lineal descendant of various
other ungulates, in whom the digits were gradually reduced from the
normal number of five, to their present solitary representative,
Professor Huxley and other Evolutionists hold to be demonstrated by the
discovery in due succession of various equine specimens, in which this
diminution is gradually exhibited.
The remains of these animals are all found in _Tertiary_ strata, of
which, it will be remembered, there are three great divisions, the
_Eocene_, _Miocene_, and _Pliocene_, the first named being the most
ancient, and the last the most recent.
The genus _Equus_, or at least our modern horse, _Equus caballus_, can
be traced no further back than the _Post-tertiary_ period. The
succession of forms leading up thither commences at the bottom of the
_Eocene_, and extends to the upper _Pliocene_.
Following Professor Huxley's guidance, we trace the pedigree downwards,
thus:
Firstly, there is the true horse. Next we have the American
Pliocene form, _Pliohippus_. In the conformation of its limbs it
presents some very slight deviations from the ordinary horse. Then
comes _Protohippus_, which represents the European _Hipparion_,
having one large digit and two small ones on each foot.... But it
is more valuable than _Hipparion_, for certain peculiarities tend
to show that the latter is rather a member of a collateral branch,
than a form in the direct line of succession. Next, in the backward
order in time, is the _Miohippus_, [_Miocene_], which corresponds
pretty nearly with the _Anchitherium_ of Europe. It presents three
complete toes--one large median and two smaller lateral ones; and
there is a rudiment of that digit which answers to the little
finger of the human hand. The European record stops here: in the
American Tertiaries, the series of ancestral equine forms is
continued into the Eocene. An older Miocene form, _Mesohippus_, has
three toes in front, with a large splint-like rudiment representing
the little finger, and three toes behind. The _radius_ and _ulna_,
_tibia_ and _fibula_,[278] are distinct. Most important of all is
the _Orohippus_, from the Eocene. Here we find four complete toes
on the front limb, three toes on the hind-limb, a well developed
_ulna_, a well developed _fibula_.
Here, when the lecture which we are considering was delivered, the
series terminated:--and upon the facts as above given Professor Huxley
thus commented:
Thus, it has become evident that, so far as our present knowledge
extends, the history of the horse-type is exactly and precisely
that which could have been predicted from a knowledge of the
principles of Evolution. And the knowledge we now possess justifies
us completely in the anticipation, that when the still lower Eocene
deposits, and those which belong to the Cretaceous Epoch have
yielded up their remains, we shall find, first, a form with four
complete toes and a rudiment of the innermost or first digit in
front, with probably a rudiment of the fifth digit in the hind
foot; while, in still older forms, the series of the digits will be
more and more complete, until we come to the five-toed animals, in
which, if the doctrine of Evolution is well founded, the whole
series must have taken its origin.
Finally he was able to add in a note that since the delivery of the
lecture, Professor Marsh had discovered a new genus of Equine Mammals,
_Eohippus_, corresponding very nearly to his description of what might
first be looked for. "This," adds Professor Huxley, "is what I mean by
demonstrative evidence of Evolution.... In fact, the whole evidence is
in favour of Evolution, and there is none against it."
* * * * *
That these facts are indeed most remarkable and deserving of all
attention, cannot be questioned. But before we can agree that they are
conclusive and demonstrative in Professor Huxley's sense a good many
considerations require to be carefully weighed.
(i.) It is obvious, in the first place, that here as in all other
instances which we have seen, the one thing is lacking which is really
wanted in order to prove Evolution, namely evidence of one species
gradually shading off into another. The creatures of which we have
heard, are each isolated from the rest, and indeed very much isolated,
for each belongs to a different _genus_,[279] which shows that the
differences between them are substantial. They are, in fact, farther
apart from one another, than the zebra or the donkey from the horse, for
both of these are classed in the genus _equus_,--or than the Bengal
tiger is from the domestic pussy-cat, both belonging to the genus
_felis_.
These various ungulate forms thus stand a long way from one another, and
if they were once connected together by a bridge, or rather a causeway,
we ought certainly to find some traces of it, and not always of those
particular types which require to be united. If we suppose the very
distinct species actually known to have been the piers of such a bridge,
yet what has become of the arches? Till some vestiges of these be found,
or, at least, some positive evidence that arches there actually were,
can it be said that the story of the fossil _equidae_ furnishes
convincing testimony on behalf of the supposed evolution? Affinities
these various forms undoubtedly exhibit: it has yet to be shown that
affinities necessarily imply descent.
There is, however, something even more remarkable. We have seen that
Professor Huxley prognosticated beforehand the discovery of _Eohippus_,
and specified pretty nearly the features it would be found to present.
In the same way, Professor Marsh[280] anticipates and describes a still
more remote ancestral form, for which, though it has not yet been
found, he has provided an appellation, _Hippops_. But if either
Professor really believes in Evolution, why does he take for granted
that we shall chance upon one particular form, standing like a solitary
outpost by itself, and not upon any other trace of the stream of life
whereof it was but one transient phase? Such predictions may be evidence
that the occurrence of these progressive forms is regulated by something
analogous to Bode's Law of interplanetary distances, and that their
discovery may be looked for at certain intervals. But the very fact that
their actual position can be so accurately specified serves to show that
it is very definitely fixed.
(ii.) Moreover, a very grave difficulty at once suggests itself, of
which Professor Huxley makes no mention. The horse as we now have him,
_Equus caballus_, is a native of the Old World, and has been introduced
to America only since the time of Columbus. There had, it is true, been
horses in America previously,--belonging to the genus _Equus_, perhaps
even to the species _caballus_,--they had, however, been long extinct,
and no memory of them remained. But, as will be noticed, the pedigree
given by Professor Huxley consists almost entirely of American animals,
to which category belong all whose names terminate in _-hippus_, and
these cannot with any reason be assigned as progenitors to the European
horse. As Sir J. W. Dawson observes:[281]
In America a series of horse-like animals has been selected,
beginning with the _Eohippus_ of the Eocene--an animal the size of
a fox, and with four toes in front and three behind--and these have
been marshalled as the ancestors of the fossil horses of
America.... Yet all this is purely arbitrary, and dependent merely
on a succession of genera more and more closely resembling the
modern horse being procurable from successive Tertiary deposits
often widely separated in time and place. In Europe, on the other
hand, the ancestry of the horse has been traced back to
_Palæotherium_--an entirely different form--by just as likely
indications, the truth being that as the group to which the horse
belongs culminated in the early Tertiary times, the animal has too
many imaginary ancestors. Both genealogies can scarcely be true,
and there is no actual proof of either. The existing American
horses, which are of European origin, are, according to the theory,
descendants of _Palæotherium_, not of _Eohippus_; but if we had not
known this on historical evidence, there would have been nothing to
prevent us from tracing them to the latter animal. This simple
consideration alone is sufficient to show that such genealogies are
not of the nature of scientific evidence.
(iii.) Even apart from this fundamental difficulty, there is much
diversity as to the precise genealogy. We may compare together the lines
of ancestry favoured--(1) by Professor Huxley, (2) In a case exhibited
in our Museum of Natural History to illustrate the subject, (3) By Mr.
Mivart,[282] (4) By Mr. Lydekker,[283] (5) In The _Evolution of the
Horse_, a pamphlet issued, January, 1903, by the American Museum. This
last gives the very latest version of the pedigree, but, naturally, of
the American Horse alone.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Huxley._ |_British_ | _Mivart._ |_Lydekker._ |_American
|_Museum Case._ | | | Museum._
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Equus |Equus |Equus |Equus |Equus
Pliohippus | | | |
Protohippus |Hipparion |Hipparion |Hipparion |Hipparion
| |Protohippus |Protohippus |Hypohippus
Miohippus | |Anchitherium |Anchitherium |Merychippus
Anchitherium|Anchitherium | |{Anchilophus |{Mesohippus
Mesohippus |Protohippus |Pachynolophus|{(_form allied to_)|{ (_2 species_)
|{Mesohippus | | |Epihippus
Orohippus |{ (_2 species_)| |{Hyracotherium |Protorohippus
Eohippus |Hyracotherium |Phenacodus |{Systemodon |Eohippus
| | | |_An undiscovered
| | | | ancestor_
| | | | (Hippops)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It will be observed, that whereas _Hipparion_ is disallowed by Professor
Huxley as not being in the direct line of descent, in all the other
genealogies he appears as the immediate ancestor of _Equus_. Also that
in all these tables, Old World and New World forms are used
indifferently to supply progenitors for the same successor. Also that
there is no agreement at all as to the earlier ancestry. It would
likewise appear that even the existence of _Eohippus_ himself is not
beyond question, for in our Museum galleries and guide-book his name
always has a note of interrogation appended. The American authorities
give an anticipatory sketch of the limbs of the ancestor which still
remains to be discovered.
There is something even more remarkable.
DEVELOPMENT OF EQUIDÆ.
/ +---------------------------------------------------+
Recent. { | Equus Caballus.{*} |
\ +---------------------------------------------------+
/ | |
{ | Equus Stenonis.{*}{**} E. Sivalensis.{*}{**} &c. |
Quaternary. { | Hippidium.{**} E. Americanus.{**} &c. |
{ | |
\ +---------------------------------------------------+
/ | |
{ | |
{ | Pliohippus. |
/ { | |
{ Pliocene. { | Hipparion.{*}{**} Protohippus. |
{ { | |
{ { | |
{ \ | |
{ +---------------------------------------------------+
{ / | |
TERTIARY. { { | |
{ Miocene. { | Hypohippus. Parahippus. |
{ { | Miohippus. Anchitherium.{*} |
{ { | Merychippus. |
{ { | Mesohippus. |
{ \ | |
{ +---------------------------------------------------+
{ / | Epihippus. |
{ { | Orohippus. Hyracotherium.{*} |
{ Eocene. { | Protorohippus. Pachynolophus.{*} |
{ { | Eohippus. |
\ { | Phenacodus. |
\ | |
+---------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Hippops (undiscovered). |
SECONDARY. | |
| No trace of Mammals except small |
| Marsupials and Insectivora. |
| |
{* Indicates an inhabitant of the Old World. All others are American.}
{** "Not in direct line of ancestry."}
Huxley's lecture exhibiting the pedigree we have been considering was
delivered in 1876. We have already seen that six years earlier he had
declared himself satisfied, after much search, that though other
genealogies might be doubtful, we had in the case of the Horse something
really satisfactory. But the pedigree of 1870--which he thus indicated
as scientifically established--was totally different from that of 1876,
and was acknowledged as erroneous by the very acceptance of the latter.
In 1870 the ancestry presented for _Equus_ consisted of _Hipparion_,
_Anchitherium_, and _Plagiolophus_. Of these, _Hipparion_ was in 1876
specifically disallowed as a direct ancestor: _Anchitherium_ was
displaced by _Miohippus_, and although we are told that these creatures
"correspond pretty nearly," the Horse cannot be descended from _both_,
especially as they dwelt in different hemispheres. Finally
_Plagiolophus_ disappears from the amended pedigree altogether. Nothing
could more vividly illustrate the danger of such speculations than that
an authority so clear-headed and conscientious as Professor Huxley
should thus proclaim his acceptance of a genealogy which he had on after
information to renounce. Nor to him alone have such misadventures
happened. Mr. Darwin too thought the claim of _Hipparion_ to ancestral
equine rank to be beyond dispute. "No one will deny," he wrote,[284]
"that the _Hipparion_ is intermediate between the existing horse and
certain older ungulate forms." Yet, as we see, this has been denied by
his champion Huxley himself.
(iv.) The materials available for the reconstruction of these various
equine forms, are far less satisfactory than might easily be supposed.
As a rule, each is known to us only by small fragments of its skeleton,
so that we can have no assurance as to what the whole animal was really
like, or even that all parts assigned to one creature really belonged to
him. We can accordingly feel no certainty that if we could see any of
these as a whole we should find it possible to suppose that the horse
descended from it. Thus in _Hippidium_, an American genus closely allied
to _Equus_, it is at least doubtful whether the digits did not terminate
in claws.[285] One species of _Hippidium_ is known only by a solitary
tooth. Of _Hyracotherium_ only the skull has been found: of _Orohippus_
only parts of jaws and teeth and a forefoot: of _Epihippus_, "only
incomplete specimens."[286] Accordingly, Professor Williamson, speaking
of the discoveries of Professor Marsh and others, thus expresses
himself:[287]
Beyond all question, some of the gaps that have hitherto separated
the three animals [_Anchitherium_, _Hipparion_, and _Equus_] are
filled up by these discoveries; but I want yet more evidence before
I can arrive at the conclusion that the doctrine of Evolution is
proved by these facts beyond the possibility of question. It
appears to me that before I can unhesitatingly give to the
testimony of these fossil horses the full value I am asked to do, I
must know more about them than is at present possible. It will not
be enough that the limbs and teeth of these creatures indicate
transmutation, but such transmutation must be evidenced by every
part of the animal. This demand is especially applicable to the
stages which intervene between the Hipparion and the horse....
Myriads of individuals must have existed to effect the gradual
shading of the one into the other in every part of its body.
(v.) It should likewise be remarked that in one not unimportant
particular, the plates so commonly given to illustrate the horse's
ancestry do not fairly represent the facts. It would appear from them
that all the animals were much of a size, which doubtless greatly
assists the imagination in picturing them as all in one line of descent.
But as a matter of fact they differed in stature extremely, and the
remoter supposed progenitors were comparative pigmies. _Hyracotherium_,
for instance, was "about the size of a hare,"[288] and according to
Professor Cope, _Orohippus_ was the exact counterpart of this diminutive
steed. The hypothetical _Hippops_, which Professor Marsh locates in the
lower Tertiary or upper Secondary rocks, can, he thinks,[289] now "be
predicated with certainty;" and amongst other things it "probably was
not larger than a rabbit, perhaps much smaller." Sometimes, so far as
evidence goes, it even seems that in respect of size there was
deterioration instead of advance as the lineage progressed. Thus
_Epihippus_, found in the Upper Eocene, is considerably smaller than
_Protorohippus_, found in the Middle Eocene; "but," says the American
pamphlet,[290] "no doubt there were others of larger size living at the
same time," which will scarcely be called convincing.
[Illustration: "THE PEDIGREE OF THE HORSE," FROM THE AMERICAN MUSEUM.
"THE PEDIGREE OF THE HORSE," FROM HUXLEY'S _LECTURES ON EVOLUTION_.]
(vi.) Worthy of notice also is "the remarkable circumstance that in the
line of evolution culminating in the modern Horse, a parallel series of
generically identical or closely allied forms occurs in the Tertiaries
of both Europe and North America, from which it has been suggested that
on both continents a parallel development of the same genera has
simultaneously taken place."[291] And, as we have seen, while the
American pedigree must have been entirely different from the European,
it terminates equally in both continents with the genus _Equus_, if not
actually with _Equus caballus_.[292] But, on any mechanical system of
evolution, it is impossible to suppose that developments conducted along
separate roads could thus be brought to meet in one terminus.[293] Mr.
Darwin did not conceive it possible that the same species should be
produced twice over, "if even the very same conditions of life, organic
and inorganic should recur,"[294] and the production of genuine horses,
not only in widely diverse circumstances, but through totally different
ancestors, must appear still less conceivable. Consequently, says Mr.
Mivart,[295] "it follows from this generic identity, that classification
will be no longer Darwinian, but one more Aristotelian, and will regard,
not the origin but the _outcome_ of development, whether of the
individual or the species."
(vii.) There is, however, another consideration more serious than any of
the above. In order to set the theory of genetic Evolution upon a sound
and substantial basis, it is not sufficient to show that the last
ungulate is lineally descended from the first,--_Equus_ from _Eohippus_,
_Hyracotherium_, _Phenacodus_, or _Hippops_,--but that this first
ungulate himself--whichever it was--has been, or at least may have been,
similarly developed from a non-ungulate Mammalian ancestor, the common
parent of all the protean forms assumed by his progeny. To develop all
these from one original, through a graduated series in each case, by the
infinitesimal process of descent with modification, would require a
period of time inconceivably long--immensely longer than that required
to change one ungulate into another. Ungulates, as has been said, are a
highly specialized type of Mammals, and although they walked on the
nails of five digits instead of only one, a vast amount of Evolution
would be required to bring them even to this point, from that whence all
Mammals are said to have started. There must also have existed, while
this development was in progress, a teeming and multitudinous mammalian
life, as raw material for its operations--and of this at least _some_
trace should remain.
But, so far as we know, the first Ungulates made their appearance upon
earth quite as soon as did any other mammals from which they could
possibly have sprung. _Phenacodus_, is in fact described as,[296] "The
most primitive Eocene mammal yet discovered." He appears in the Lower
Tertiary; while the Secondary and Mesozoic rocks beneath,--the whole
period covered by which would be none too long for the evolution of
Tertiary mammals generally,--are practically devoid of mammalian remains
altogether, exhibiting only a few small marsupials, from which we can no
more suppose _Phenacodus_ and the huge and various beasts who were his
Eocene contemporaries to have developed, than from opossums the size of
shrew-mice.
It also complicates matters not a little to find that when placental
mammals first show themselves all over the world at the beginning of
the Eocene,--while this highly specialized order of the Ungulates seems
to have been much the most numerous, it had a host of contemporaries, of
extreme diversities of structure:--as for instance Unguiculates (or
clawed animals) allied to the Hyena and the Fox, Rodents (gnawing
animals) akin to the Squirrel, as well as Whales and Bats. Of the
Cetaceans, Sir J. W. Dawson tells us:[297]
The oldest of the whales are in their dentition more perfect than
any of their successors, since their teeth are each implanted by
two roots, and have serrated crowns, like those of the seals. The
great Eocene whales of the South Atlantic (_Zeuglodon_) which have
these characters, attained the length of seventy feet, and are
undoubtedly the first of the whales in rank as well as in time.
This is perhaps one of the most difficult facts to explain on the
theory of Evolution.... "We may question," says Gaudry,[298] "these
strange and gigantic sovereigns of the Tertiary oceans as to their
progenitors--they leave us without reply." ... Their silence is the
more significant as one can scarcely suppose these animals to have
been nurtured in any limited or secluded space in the early stages
of their development.
The Bats, as is obvious, would require quite as much transformation from
the generalized mammalian type as the Whales themselves, though in
quite another direction. But they appear with their wings fully
developed, in the Eocene, in both Hemispheres.
Gaudry thinks [writes Sir J. W. Dawson][299] that it is "natural to
suppose" that there must have been species existing previously with
shorter fingers[300] and rudimentary wings; but there are no facts
to support this supposition, which is the more questionable since
the supposed rudimentary wings would be useless, and perhaps
harmful to their possessors. Besides, if from the Eocene to the
present, the Bats have remained the same, how long would it take to
develop an animal with ordinary feet, like those of a shrew, into a
bat?
Such instances are by no means singular, nor are like difficulties
confined to the Eocene. In the Miocene above, about the time when
Anchitherium flourished, there appeared a family with whom he might
claim relationship, for they were not only akin to the Ungulates but
Perissodactyles, or "odd-toed," like himself. These were the
"Proboscideae"--"the beasts that bear between their eyes a serpent for a
hand," in other words the Elephants and their allies. These, like other
families, amongst their earliest representatives included the giants of
their race, for some of their Miocene specimens[301] are about half as
large again as the largest of our modern elephants. Professor Ray
Lankester has recently declared[302] that we now understand the genetic
affinities of these creatures, whose faces have been pulled out into
trunks with the nose at the extremity, and in support of his statement
he adduces the features of the cranium as exhibited in certain
recently-discovered specimens. But how far can conclusions be called
final which are based upon such partial evidence?[303] As M. Gaudry,
convinced Evolutionist as he is, acknowledges, in regard of this very
matter:[304]
Like the Mastodons, the Dinotheria appeared suddenly. Whence did
they come? from what quadrupeds did they spring? At present we do
not know.... The points of difference [from other mammals] taken as
a whole, and compared with the points of resemblance, are too great
to enable us to point to any relationship between the Proboscideans
and animals of other orders as yet known to us.
Such then are some of the still unanswered questions connected with the
genesis of the Horse, "the most famous instance of geological
evidence"[305] which Professor Huxley selects as proving Evolution to
demonstration. It is by no means easy to understand how it could ever be
supposed to merit any such description. In view of the various
difficulties recited above it can hardly be thought that there is
satisfactory evidence even of the modicum of Evolution for which alone
are such arguments brought, namely within the limits of the _Equidæ_.
Even were the reality of this established to the full, how would such
evidence compare with that we have heard, drawn not from one corner of
Organic Nature, but from a review of the great lines of its
history?[306]
We find indeed that while Professor Huxley declares palæontology to be
the main support of Evolution, other authorities tell us the exact
contrary.
The doctrine of organic evolution [says Sir J. W. Dawson][307] is
essentially biological rather than geological, and has been much
more favoured by biologists than by those whose studies lead them
more specially to consider the succession of animals and plants
revealed by the rocks of the earth.
Similarly Professor Williamson,[308] speaking of the efforts made to
obtain evidence on behalf of Evolution, says: "Not only living, but
extinct animals have been appealed to; Professor Huxley especially has,
with his wonted skilfulness, made use of the latter to buttress the
geological side of the structure, which is confessedly its weakest one."
More important than all,--Mr. Darwin himself fully acknowledged that the
palæontological evidence is far short of what it should be:--and
attempted to meet the difficulty by pleading the imperfection of the
geological record:--a plea to be more fully considered presently.
We must not leave unnoticed the method of dealing with the geological
record adopted by Professor Haeckel. Of this we have already seen a
slight specimen,--- in the gratuitous and baseless assertion that the
apetalous Dicotyledons date as far back as the Trias, at the very bottom
of the Secondary period, by which, were it a fact, a serious
Evolutionary void would be filled. In the same manner he draws a
perfectly imaginary picture of the submarine forests of primeval days,
in which "we may suppose" all the forms of after vegetation to have
begun their career as seaweeds.[309]
But in regard of his favourite doctrine of the bestial origin of man, he
goes much further, and prints[310] an elaborate genealogy upon which
Professor Huxley in reviewing him makes no adverse remark. In this he
exhibits, as a simple matter of scientific fact, an "Ancestral Series of
the human pedigree," which ninety-nine per cent, of his readers will
naturally suppose to be based upon palæontological evidence. This
wonderful genealogy stands thus:
1. _Monera._ 2. Single-celled Primeval animals. 3. Many-celled Primeval
animals. 4. Ciliated planulæ (_Planæada_). 5. Primeval Intestinal
animals (_Gastræada_). 6. Gliding Worms (_Turbellaria_). 7. Soft-worms
(_Scolecida_). 8. Sack worms (_Himatega_). 9. _Acrania._ 10.
_Monorrhina._ 11. Primeval fish (_Selachii_). 12. Salamander fish
(_Dipneusta_). 13. Gilled Amphibia (_Sozobranchia_). 14. Tailed Amphibia
(_Sozura_). 15. Primeval Amniota (_Protamnia_). 16. Primary Mammals
(_Promammalia_). 17. _Marsupialia._ 18. Semi-apes (_Prosimiæ_). 19.
Tailed narrow-nosed Apes. 20. Tail-less narrow-nosed Apes (Men-like
Apes). 21. _Pithecanthropus_ (Speechless or Ape-like Man). 22. Talking
Man.
The first thing to remark [says M. de Quatrefages][311] is that not
one of the creatures exhibited in this pedigree has ever been seen,
either living or fossil. Their existence is based entirely upon
theory.[312] All species, existing or extinct, are said to have
been preceded by ancestral forms, which have disappeared leaving
no vestige behind.... All the ancestral groups more or less ill
represented in the actual organic world, do not suffice to fill up
the gaps in his pedigree; from one stage to another there is
sometimes too broad a gulf. Then Haeckel invents the types
themselves, as well as the line of descent to which he assigns them
[for example No. 7, The _Scolecida_, and No. 21,
_Pithecanthropus_].
This kind of "Science" does not deserve to be treated seriously. It will
be sufficient to cite another observation of M. de Quatrefages:[313]
If Darwin erred in regarding our very ignorance as to some degree
telling in favour of his notions, he never tried to re-write the
missing volumes of the earth's history, to restore the chapters
which have been torn out, or to fill the blanks upon pages that
have come down to us. But this is just what Haeckel does
continually. Whenever a branch or a twig is lacking on his
genealogical trees, whenever the transit from one type to another
would appear too abrupt, were we to restrict ourselves to creatures
actually known, he invents species and groups bodily, to which he
unhesitatingly assigns a place in phylogeny, often a part in
phylogenesis. Sometimes he calls in ontogeny to countenance the
discovery of supposed ancestors: but frequently he does no more
than affirm their existence. He thus creates a fauna, entirely
hypothetical, of which Vogt rightly said that no man ever saw a
trace of it, or ever will.
It is in this fashion that Professor Haeckel habitually solves the
Riddles of the Universe.
As Vogt himself wrote,[314] "We shall be compelled to patch and alter
these genealogical trees of species, which up to this time have been set
forth as the last word of Science, and especially of Darwinism."
And Du Bois-Reymond,[315] "Man's pedigree, as drawn up by Haeckel, is
worth about as much as is that of Homer's heroes for critical
historians."
There remains to be considered Darwin's own explanation of the admitted
deficiency of palæontological evidence.
The main cause [he writes][316] of innumerable intermediate links
[between different forms] not now occurring everywhere throughout
nature, depends on the very process of natural selection, through
which new varieties continually take the places of and supplant
their parent-forms. But just in proportion as this process of
extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of
intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly
enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every
stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not
reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps,
is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged
against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the
extreme imperfection of the geological record.
How imperfect this record is he proceeds to argue at length, and he has
no difficulty in showing how much of it has at one time or other been
defaced by natural causes, and how small a portion has been laid open to
our inspection. But although his demonstration on this point is
continually quoted, as though it solved the difficulty, it does not
appear that it need detain us long.
It is, in the first place, obvious that the absence of evidence cannot
prove the truth of the theory of Evolution or any other, and it is proof
of that theory which is required. Apart from palæontological facts, as
Professor Huxley has told us, there can be no conclusive evidence one
way or the other; and if the geological record be not sufficiently
complete to supply such evidence, the theory cannot possibly claim to be
scientifically established.
Is it not also, as M. de Quatrefages has remarked, very singular that
precisely that evidence must be supposed always to have perished which
the Evolution theory imperatively requires, while so much remains which
appears to contradict it?
But, moreover, as Mr. Carruthers says, incomplete though the record
undoubtedly is, and limited as is our knowledge even of what
exists,--there still remains a vast mass of information which it has
actually supplied, and there seems to be no reason for denying that, as
to the particular point under consideration, its testimony is ample. If,
as on the principles of genetic Evolution must be the case, there were
in each line of descent no successive species or genera, made up of
forms clustered round one point in the course of development more than
another, how comes it that we find always and everywhere just such
isolated clusters, naturally forming genera and species; and that in no
single instance do we find any trace of the graduated series linking
them together? Is it not quite impossible to suppose, that at all points
in Nature we stumble upon exactly those instances which disguise, and
apparently contradict, the method upon which she invariably works?
It is likewise obvious that the practice of Evolutionists is quite
inconsistent with their own plea, for their arguments are constantly
unmeaning except on the assumption that the geological record is
sufficiently complete for practical purposes. In the example of the
Horse, for instance, which we have been considering, the whole case for
his Evolution is based upon the supposition that the completed _Equus_
did not exist during the earlier periods when _Eohippus_,
_Anchitherium_, _Hipparion_ and the rest of them were preparing the way
for his appearance, and that none of these lived simultaneously with
others more ancient still which are set down as _their_ ancestors. But
on what does such a supposition rest? Simply on the absence of remains
of the more developed, in the strata containing those of the less
developed. If such a reason be sufficient--which we will not
question--it is likewise sufficient to establish the non-existence of
intermediate forms to bridge the wide breaches in the supposed
pedigree, and we must accordingly conclude that such intermediate forms
there never were.
It is no less evident that whatever further evidence is found, may tell
the wrong way, from the evolutionary point of view, no less than the
right one; either by discrediting supposed link-forms, or by introducing
us to new and strange types which increase our difficulties by requiring
lines of communication to be established with them. Thus, as Mr. Mivart
tells us,[317] "It is undeniable that there are instances which appeared
at first to indicate a _gradual transition_, which instances have been
shown by further investigation and discovery not to indicate truly
anything of the kind." Another example of the same sort is furnished by
the recent discovery of _Arsinoetherium_, a genus of very large and
heavy hoofed beasts, the relics of which have been recently discovered
in the upper Eocene of Egypt. This creature was something like a large
rhinoceros, but had no connexion whatever with that family. In fact, we
are told, its horns, of which it has four, two on top of its head, and
two smaller above the eyes, and also its teeth, make it stand quite
apart _from all other mammals_.
It thus appears that when the theory of genetic Evolution comes to the
bar of Palæontology, the most favourable verdict to which it can pretend
is, Not proven.
One thing is certain. All the evidence we possess in regard of Organic
Evolution, leaves the question of the origin, the propagation, and the
development of life exactly where it has always been. No force has been
found by Science to which we may ascribe the origin of the world we
know.
As the Count de Saporta writes:[318]
Although the problem of "creation,"--formerly thought so simple,
and dated almost within human ken and the period of human
history--has now been relegated to a period too distant to be
imagined, it would be childish to say that on that account the
problem has ceased to exist. Its limits have, it is true, been
shifted; but we are bound to acknowledge that they have nowise been
altered. The horizon may have broadened and receded before us more
and more, but the relative position of the objects we have to
investigate remains precisely the same.
So too M. Blanchard:[319]
There has never been witnessed, and it is impossible to imagine the
apparition of a creature not derived from another creature: it
would therefore be folly to pretend to an explanation of creation.
If, as the advocates of transformism suppose, all species sprang
from some primitive types, or even from a single primordial cell,
the appearance, whether of those types or of that parent cell of
the living world, would be neither more explicable nor less
marvellous than the appearance of a host of creatures.
And, in like manner, Darwin's great ally and admirer, Sir Charles Lyell,
when he had time to realize all the bearings of his friend's theory,
wrote to him,[320]--"I think the old 'creation' is almost as much
required as ever."
XVIII
TO SUM UP
It is time to return to the point from which we started our whole
enquiry, and to ask what has been gathered in the course of it towards a
solution of the question with which we began. That the Cosmos in which
we dwell, the world of law, order, and life, has not existed for ever,
we saw to be a truth enforced by the researches of physical Science, no
less than by the clear teaching of reason. It certainly had a beginning,
and there must be a cause to which that beginning was due,--a cause
capable of producing all which we find to have been actually produced.
The material Universe and the mechanism of the heavens,--organic life
with all its infinite marvels and varieties--animal sensation--human
intelligence--canons of beauty, the law of good and evil--all these must
have existed potentially in the First Cause, as in the Source whence
alone they could be derived.
The Nature of this Cause was the object of our quest. In particular we
set ourselves to examine the assertion now so loudly made that Science
has found a full explanation in the forces of the Universe itself as
they come within her cognizance, that is to say, the material forces
which she can directly observe, and upon which she can experiment. In
particular we have studied the Law of Evolution, in its various
significations, and other laws subsidiary to it, in order to determine,
from the point of view of reason and Science alone, whether it can be
said that the prime factor of which we are in search is thus supplied.
The result has been to make it evident that while modern discovery has
immensely multiplied and magnified the marvels which have to be
accounted for, it has disclosed nothing which can be supposed to account
for them in a manner to satisfy our reason. So far as the forces of
Nature are concerned, the mysteries that lie beyond are even darker than
they were. The origin and nature of matter and force, the source of
motion, of life, of sensation and consciousness, of rational
intelligence and language, of Free-will, of the reign of law and order
to which all Nature testifies,--all these are for Science utterly
unsolved problems, which, as some amongst her teachers tell us, must
remain for ever insoluble. Even less prospect, if possible, can there be
that any mechanical forces will ever account for perception of the
sublime and beautiful,--and above all--of the distinction between right
and wrong.
Here, then, Science stops,--confessing that she can be our guide no
farther, and lending no colour whatever to the unscientific pretensions
which are so noisily advanced by some persons in her name. Her domain
is the world of sense, and it is evident that nothing existing within
that realm can possibly furnish an explanation which will satisfy our
intellectual need for causality.
Are we therefore to say that we can know nothing concerning the First
Cause to which the phenomena of the Universe are due? Such is the
Agnostic's position. What we have no means of knowing, he says, we must
not pretend to know. It were irrational and dishonest to do so. When
Science fails us, the true wisdom is to profess ignorance,--thus only
can our position still be scientific.
But is such a principle itself scientific? Is it not a gratuitous and
monstrous assumption that we can know nothing but that of which our
senses directly tell us? That the Universe has a cause is no less
certain than that the Universe exists, for of that cause it is the
monument. And, as of the whole, so of every part or element which it
contains, it is absolutely certain that there must be a cause, and one
adequate to the production of what has actually been produced; for as
the proverb says, "Nothing is to be got out of a sack but what is in
it." From such conclusions there is no escape;--and since it is
impossible to find the cause required within the world of material
forces and sensible phenomena, it becomes no less obvious that it must
lie beyond, across the frontier which nothing material can pass.
* * * * *
Therefore, also, we know something concerning that Cause,--very little,
perhaps, in comparison with what we cannot know,--but still something
very substantial. We know that such a Cause exists. We know that it must
possess every excellence which we discover in Nature,--all that she has,
and more; since what she derives from it, the Cause of Nature has of
itself. In it must be all power, for except as flowing from it there is
no power possible. Finally, as a capable Cause of law and order in
Nature, and of Intellect and Will in man, the First Cause must be
supereminently endowed with Understanding, and Freedom in the exercise
of its might,--or it would be inferior to its own works.
Since there must have been something from eternity, [says
Bolingbroke][321] because there is something now, the eternal Being
must be an intelligent Being, because there is intelligence now;
for no man will venture to assert that non-entity can produce
entity, or non-intelligence, intelligence. And such a Being must
exist necessarily, whether things have been always as they are, or
whether they have been made in time: because it is no more easy to
conceive an infinite than a finite progression of effects without a
cause.
It is therefore not easy to understand how we can avoid the conclusion
of the distinguished men of Science whom we have heard declare that they
assume "as absolutely self-evident" the existence of a Deity who is the
Creator and Upholder of all things.
It will probably be answered that this is mere Anthropomorphism; which
formidable term appears by many to be considered sufficient to close the
whole question, and to rule the idea of a personal God out of court. Did
not Voltaire remark that if in the beginning God made man to His own
image and likeness, man has well repaid Him ever since? And what can be
more conclusive than that?
But what--after all--does "Anthropomorphism" mean in this connexion?
Simply, that being men we have to speak in human terms, even of what is
superhuman. By no possibility can we do anything else. Limited as we are
by the conditions of our nature, we can find no mode of expression
except such as is based upon sensible experience; and although we can
convince ourselves by rational inference of the existence, and to some
extent of the character, of what is beyond sense, we can frame no
description of it, nor even a phantasm or image by means of imagination,
except so far as we are able to draw upon the phenomena of the external
world. Thus it is that artists who endeavour to represent an immaterial
being, as an angel, a djinn or a sprite, though the essence of the
object they would depict is that it has no body, have perforce to give
it one, though they make it as little gross as possible, for otherwise
they could not portray it at all. But however such images may be
refined and etherealized they are intended to be understood only as
conventional figures to suggest to the mind its own concept, which is as
different from them as the notes produced by a singer are from those on
the score from which he sings. No one imagines that the genius of Music
is a young woman holding a shell to her ear, or that the Cherubim are
heads and wings and nothing more. So it is with statements of the
Theistic belief concerning the First Cause, or God. To put this into
words we are compelled to use the only materials within our reach, and
to borrow our phraseology from that which, within our experience is the
highest and noblest element found in the Universe,--namely our own
intelligence and will. These beyond question must be transcendentally
possessed by the Cause on which they depend. So far Anthropomorphism is
sound sense; that is to say, so long as it attributes all possible
excellence to the source of all. It is foolish and unscientific only
when it attributes to the Absolute and Unconditioned the limitations of
an inferior order of being. We may truly say that a penny is contained
in a pound,--but it does not follow that a sovereign must be of copper.
According to the scientific doctrine that all our familiar forms of
energy are ultimately derived from the Sun, it might well be argued from
observation of a farthing rushlight that Solar Energy includes heat and
light; but not that it is fed on tallow. This appears to be plain and
obvious enough, often as it is forgotten or ignored. As Sir Oliver
Lodge has lately put the matter:[322]
Shall we possess these things and God not possess them? Let no
worthy human attribute be denied to the Deity. There are many
errors, but there is one truth in Anthropomorphism. Whatever worthy
attribute belongs to man, be it personality or any other, its
existence in the universe is thereby admitted; we can deny it no
more.
Or as Professor Baden Powell expresses the same argument:[323]
That which requires thought and reason to understand must be itself
thought and reason. That which mind alone can investigate or
express must be itself mind. And if the highest conception attained
be but partial, then the mind and reason studied is greater than
the mind and reason of the student. If the more it be studied the
more vast and complex is the necessary connexion in reason
disclosed, then the more evident is the vast extent and compass of
the intelligence thus partially manifested, and its reality, as
existing in the immutably connected order of objects examined,
independently of the mind of the investigator.
The reluctance frequently manifested by scientific men to admit the
force of so plain an argument, appears to be generally due to a
fundamental misconception. It is constantly assumed that to introduce
the element of purpose in Nature is to deny the continuity of Natural
law, and that to speak of design in regard of a process or a structure,
is equivalent to saying that a non-natural agent intervenes at that
particular point and takes the work out of Nature's hands. This, it may
be supposed, was Professor Huxley's idea when he spoke of "the commoner
and coarser forms of teleology," giving as an instance the supposition
that eyes were constructed for the purpose of enabling their possessors
to see. It might indeed be replied that, at any rate, it is less
difficult to suppose this, than that eyes were constructed without any
purpose of seeing, or knowledge of the laws of optics;--but evidently it
is taken for granted that Theists imagine every purposive item in nature
to be violently introduced from without, like the forms of lions or
peacocks into which topiarian gardeners clip their shrubs. But, as has
been said, the laws of Nature are the expression of the mind of God: it
is through them that He accomplishes His design. As Professor Romanes
came to see at the close of his life, it is strange what jealousy there
is of admitting the Creator into Creation. "It is still assumed on both
sides," he wrote,[324] "that there must be something inexplicable or
miraculous about a phenomenon in order to its being divine,"--and
although we must utterly demur to such a description of the position of
Theists, it undoubtedly is true of their adversaries. Their objections
on this head can only signify that it is with the laws of Nature as
with a railway locomotive from which the driver, having got up steam and
set it going, jumps off, leaving it entirely to its own devices. But, as
a legislator, if rightly interpreted, speaks by the mouth of every judge
who administers the law in practice, and applies it to concrete
cases,--so the Author of Nature, whose laws cannot be perverted,
provides through them for all that is to be operated by the forces He
has instituted.
So it is that, as Professors Stewart and Tait have told us, we must
conceive of Him as not the Creator only, but likewise the Upholder of
all things, while Lord Kelvin declares[325] we are unmistakably shown
through Nature that she depends upon one "ever-acting Creator and
Ruler." It is in this omnipresence of Divine influence that Monism finds
the modicum of plausibility which serves it for a foundation. It runs,
indeed, into the absurdity of endeavouring to explain such Omnipresence
by identifying the finite with the Infinite, and attributing to matter
qualities which all experience, and very specially all scientific
experience, contradicts; but, for all that, it scores a distinct point
as against mere materialism, which Comte declares to be "the most
illogical form of metaphysics," and the late Sir Leslie Stephen, "not so
much error as sheer nonsense." Theism avoids the error of either
extreme. While it teaches the essential and fundamental distinction
between the Absolute and the contingent, between the Creator and His
creatures, it teaches likewise that He is ever present in His works, and
that in their every operation He is manifested.
And so, in the words of Rivarol, God is the explanation of the world,
and the world is the demonstration of God. The acceptance of a
Self-existent, All-powerful, and intelligent Being can alone serve as a
basis for any system of Cosmogony which satisfies our intellectual need
of causation; while, on the other hand, the nature of this Being, as
necessarily beyond the scope of our senses, can be known to us only
indirectly through the effects of which He is the cause.
By no one has this conclusion been more clearly stated than by Lamarck,
the real father of Organic Evolutionism, whom many would therefore
represent as an atheist. His words are so much to the point that with
them we may conclude.[326]
Of the Supreme Being, in a word of God, to whom all infinitude is
seen to belong, man has thus conceived an idea, which, though
indirect, is sound, and which necessarily follows from what he
observes. In the same manner, he has formed another idea, equally
solid, namely of the boundless power of this Being, suggested by
the consideration of His works....
Nature not being intelligent, nor even a being, but an order of
things constituting a power subject to law, cannot therefore be
God. She is the wondrous product of His Almighty will: and for us,
of all created things she is the grandest and most admirable. Thus
the will of God is everywhere expressed by the laws of Nature,
since these laws originate from Him.
APPENDIX
_A._ _Evolution and the lower forms of life_ (_p. 165_).
A singularly instructive field for the study of the mutability or
stability of species should be afforded by the lower forms of life, in
which organization is reduced to a minimum, they being mere masses of
protoplasm without even a containing envelope, while their nourishment
is of the simplest. It would therefore appear that environment should be
all-potent to modify them and produce specific modifications, while the
extreme rapidity with which they propagate their kind, and that
unisexually, ought to require no vast extent of time to make such
transmutations apparent.
It is found, however, on the contrary, that nowhere in organic nature
does the type remain more rigidly persistent. Professor Macbride, for
example, tells us,[327]
"The Myxomycetæ may be regarded as the organic group in which the forces
of heredity,--whatever these forces may be--are at their maximum: they
have responded as little as possible to the influence of their
environment."
To the same effect speaks Professor Paulesco of Bucharest, of other
elementary organisms.[328]
What is still more remarkable, these same organisms are extremely
sensitive to altered conditions of environment, which have a direct and
immediate influence, gravely modifying their morphological and
physiological characters, changes in respect of light, minute
alterations of temperature, or the introduction of a new chemical
substance, even in infinitesimal quantity, frequently causing them to
assume forms very different from the specific type, and profoundly
modifying their nutritive processes.
Here, it was at first thought, when Pasteur revealed their history, is
clear evidence of specific transformation. But he presently convinced
himself and others that it is not so, for although liable to assume such
polymorphic forms according to the conditions in which they find
themselves, there is no alteration of specific nature, and if the
original circumstances be restored, the original forms reappear--"une
élasticité functionelle de la cellule lui permettant de se plier à des
conditions variées d'existence sans changer d'être." (Pasteur.)
As M. Duclaux adds:[329]
"La notion d'espèce ne disparait pas pour cela. La variabilité est un
caractère comme un autre, bien que plus difficile à inscrire dans la
classification, et une espèce est aussi bien définie par les
sensibilités diverses qu'elle manifeste que par la petite liste des mots
et de propriétés dans laquelle on croyait pouvoir autrefois enfermer
toute son histoire.... La lien de l'espèce c'est la loi qui préside à
ces changements, et la variété des formes et des fonctions n'est pas du
tout en contradiction avec l'unité de l'espèce."
_B._ _Note on Chap. XV. p. 203._
Since the foregoing pages have been in type there has come to hand the
New York _Literary Digest_ of January 23, 1904, containing the following
article (p. 119).
"ARE THE DAYS OF DARWINISM NUMBERED?"
The recent death of Herbert Spencer lends special timeliness to the
above topic, which is being actively debated just now in German
theological circles. The immediate cause of the revival of interest in
the present status of the Darwinian theory is found in a lengthy article
by the veteran philosopher, Edward von Hartmann, which appears in
Oswald's _Annalen der Naturphilosophie_ (vol. ii. 1903), under the title
'Der Niedergang der Darwinismus' ('The Passing of Darwinism'). That the
famous 'philosopher of the unconscious' is not prejudiced in favour of
biblical views has been more than clear since the publication of his
_Selbstzersetzung der Christentums_ ('Disintegration of Christianity')
in 1874. Hartmann in his new article has this to say--
'In the sixties of the past century the opposition of the older group of
savants to the Darwinian hypothesis was still supreme. In the seventies,
the new idea began to gain ground rapidly in all cultured countries. In
the eighties, Darwin's influence was at its height, and exercised an
almost absolute control over technical research. In the nineties, for
the first time, a few timid expressions of doubt and opposition were
heard, and these gradually swelled into a great chorus of voices, aiming
at the overthrow of the Darwinian theory. In the first decade of the
twentieth century it has become apparent that the days of Darwinism are
numbered. Among its latest opponents are such savants as Eimer, Gustav
Wolf, De Vries, Hoocke, von Wellstein, Fleischmann, Reinke, and many
others.'
These facts, according to Hartmann's view, while they do not indicate
that the Darwinian theory is doomed, undermine its most radical
features:
'The theory of descent is safe, but Darwinism has been weighed and found
wanting. Selection can in general not achieve any positive results, but
only negative effects; the origin of species by minimal changes is
possible, but has not been demonstrated. The pretensions of Darwinism as
a pure mechanical explanation of results that show purpose are totally
groundless.'
Other scholars think that Hartmann does not do full justice to the
reaction that has set in, particularly in Germany, against Darwinism.
This sentiment is voiced by Professor Zoeckler, of the University of
Greifswald, in the _Beweis des Glaubens_ (No. xi.), a journal which
recently published a collection of anti-Darwinian views from German
naturalists. He calls the article of Hartmann 'the tombstone-inscription
[_Grabschrift_] for Darwinism,' and goes on to say:
'The claim that the hypothesis of descent is secured scientifically
must most decidedly be denied. Neither Hartmann's exposition nor
the authorities he cites have the force of moral conviction for the
claim for purely mechanical descent. The descent of organisms is
not a scientifically demonstrated proposition, although descent in
an ideal sense can be made to harmonize with the biblical account
of creation.'
Views of a similar kind are voiced in many quarters. The Hamburg savant,
Edward Hoppe, has written a brochure, _Ist mit der Descendenz-Theorie
eine religiöse Vorstellung vereinbar?_ [Is the Theory of Evolution
reconcilable with the Religious Idea?] in which he takes issue, in the
name of religion, with the purely naturalistic type of Darwinian
thought. The most pronounced convert to anti-Darwinian views is
Professor Fleischmann, of Erlangen, who has not only discarded the
mechanical conception of the origin of being, but the whole Darwinian
theory. He recently delivered a course of lectures, entitled 'Die
Darwin'sche Theorie,' which have appeared in book form in Leipsic. He
comes to this conclusion: 'The Darwinian theory of descent has not a
single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result
of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination.'
* * * * *
From another article in the same journal (p. 116), entitled 'A Study of
Creation,' the following paragraphs may be cited:
"The French have never been enthusiastic Darwinians. It is,
perhaps, not surprising, therefore, to find a French geologist, M.
Stanislas Meunier, arguing in the _Revue Scientifique_ (December
19) against all schools of transformism and stoutly maintaining
what is practically a doctrine of special creation. He admits that
living beings form a connected series; but the connexion, he
believes, is not one of physical descent, but inheres in something
outside of and pre-existent to the earth. He does not name it, but
he would probably not object to the inference that it is the mind
of a creator.
"M. Meunier gives at some length his reasons for rejecting
Darwin's, Lamarck's, and all other theories of transformism. All we
can be sure of, he thinks, is that, as in the case of the various
kinds of pottery, we have to do with an orderly development,
although he thinks it is not a development by descent. He closes,
thus:
"'Doubtless we cannot usefully risk any hypothesis on the mechanism
of the production of living things; but it is, perhaps, a step in
advance only to come to the conclusion that the cause of life and
its manifestations on the earth is exterior to the earth; that it
is anterior to our world, just as are doubtless the laws of physics
and chemistry, which govern the relations of matter and force
throughout space.
"'The philosophy of science can lose nothing by the admission of
points of view that, far from narrowing our subjects of study,
enlarge them beyond all limits; and this is, perhaps, the occasion
to show once more to persons who are turning toward metaphysics in
their thirst for mystery, that they will find in pure science that
wherewith they may satisfy their legitimate aspirations.'"
_C._ _Succession of Plant forms p. 220._
Recent investigations have led to the remarkable discovery that many
fern-like plants of the Carboniferous rocks, hitherto classed as
Cryptogams, were in reality seed-bearers, and thus intermediate between
Cryptogams and Cycads, the most primitive of existing seed-plants. They
have accordingly been placed in a special group "Cycadofilices," or
"Fern-Cycads," and regarded as transitional types, the view that they
are the remains of a natural bridge connecting the Ferns with the
Gymnosperms having received wide support,[330] and at first sight this
conclusion would appear natural and obvious. But here, as in other
cases, the difficulty is that the seeds which have been found are all
fully developed; there are none in the intermediate stages between true
spores and true seeds; we have the finished article, but no trace of
seeds in the making; which upon any theory of evolution must have been
exceedingly numerous. Hence Dr. Scott tells us:[331]
"The important discoveries of the seeds of the Pteridosperms scarcely
touch the question of descent, for these organs are of too advanced a
type to throw light on the probable derivation of the group."
In this instance, therefore, as in others, it remains true that in no
case is any trace found of rudimentary character in the earliest fossil
specimens of any class.
It is undoubtedly a further puzzle that some of the Carboniferous
cryptogams which did not bear real seeds, yet simulated them, a habit
not easily explained on evolutionary principles.
_D._ _The Course of Evolution._
The evidence of Professor Vines quoted in the text (pp. 202, 237)
receives a remarkable confirmation from that of Dr. Smith Woodward,
Keeper of Geology in the National Museum of Natural History. Speaking
before the International Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis,
U.S.A., September 22nd, 1904, he thus touched upon the same question,
which he illustrated especially from the history of fossil fishes, which
he has made his special study.[332]
"It must be confessed that repeated discoveries have now left faint
hope that exact and gradual links will ever be forthcoming between
most of the families and genera. The 'imperfection of the record,'
of course, may still render some of the negative evidence
untrustworthy; but even approximate links would be much commoner in
collections than they actually are if the doctrine of gradual
evolution were correct. Palæontology, indeed, is clearly in favour
of the theory of discontinuous mutation, or advance by sudden
changes, which has lately received so much support from the
botanical experiments of H. de Vries.
"Further results obtained from the study of fossils have a bearing
even on the deepest problems of Biology, namely, those connected
with the nature of life itself. For instance, it is allowable to
infer, from the statements already made, that the main factor in
the evolution of organisms is some inherent impulse--the 'bathmic
force' of Cope--which acts with unerring certainty whatever be the
conditions of the moment."
_E._ _Pedigree of the Horse._
Some recent evidence on this subject certainly does not clear away the
difficulties set forth in the text.
From _Nature_, Sept. 8, 1904, p. 474.
"Professor Osborn (in a lecture before the British Association)
mentioned that more than a hundred more or less complete skeletons
of horses and horse-like animals had been found in North America.
He thought he had established the fact that horses were
polyphyletic, there being four or five contemporary series in the
Miocene, but that the direct origin of the genus _Equus_ in North
America was not established with certainty."
Professor Sedgwick, _Student's Text Book of Zoology_, p. 599.
"Much has been written on the ancestry of the horse. It has been
maintained by many authors that a continuous series of forms
connecting it with the four-toed, brachyodont Hyracothoridæ of the
Eocene has been discovered, and that here if anywhere a
demonstrative historical proof has been obtained of the doctrine of
organic evolution. Without desiring in the smallest degree to
impugn that doctrine, it may be permitted us here to examine rather
closely the view that the series of forms which recent
palæontological research has undoubtedly brought to light
constitute that historical proof which has been claimed for them."
[After an examination of the structural characters of these intermediate
forms, viz., _Pliohippus_, _Protohippus_, _Desmathippus_, _Miohippus_,
_Mesohippus_, _Orohippus_, and _Hyracotherium_, the author proceeds]:
"So far as the characters mentioned are concerned, we have here a
very remarkable series of forms which at first sight seem to
constitute a linear series with no cross-connections. Whether,
however, they really do this is a difficult point to decide. There
are flaws in the chain of evidence, which require careful and
detailed consideration. For instance, the genus _Equus_ appears in
the Upper Siwalik beds, which have been ascribed to the Miocene
age. It has, however, been maintained that these beds are in
reality Lower Pliocene, or even Upper Pliocene. It is clear that
the decision of this question is of the utmost importance. If
_Equus_ really existed in the Upper Miocene, it was antecedent to
some of its supposed ancestors. Again in the series of equine
forms, _Mesohippus_, _Miohippus_, _Desmathippus_, _Protohippus_,
which are generally regarded as coming into the direct line of
equine descent, Scott[333] points out that each genus is, in some
respect or other, less modified than its predecessor. In other
words, it would appear that in this succession of North American
forms the earlier genera show, in some points, closer resemblance
to the modern _Equus_ than to their immediate successors. It is
possible that these difficulties and others of the same kind will
be overcome with the growth of knowledge, but it is necessary to
take note of them, for in the search after truth nothing is gained
by ignoring such apparent discrepancies between theory and fact."
Besides the structure of limbs and teeth, another argument for the
descent of the horse has been drawn from certain phenomena of
colouration. Stripings are found not unfrequently to occur in the legs
and withers, which Darwin took for a reversion to the character of a
very remote ancestor, the common parent, in fact, of horses and asses,
which he supposed to have been striped all over like a zebra. Like other
such common ancestors, this hypothetical animal had never been seen, but
was thought to be most nearly represented by the Kathiwar horse, with
stripes on a dun ground, a specimen of which is exhibited as
illustrating the hypothesis in the National Museum of Zoology.
Recently, however, Professor Ridgeway, who has devoted special attention
to the problem, has satisfied himself that there is no sufficient
foundation for these suppositions. He thus sums up the evidence which he
has been able to collect:[334]
"Darwin's view that the original ancestor of the Equidæ was a
dun-coloured animal, striped all over, was based, not merely on the
occurrence of stripes in horses, but on his belief that such
stripes were common in dun horses, and that there was a tendency in
horses to revert to dun colour. But it must be confessed that the
facts do not warrant his conclusion.... It is clear that stripes
are at least as often a concomitant of dark as of dun colour.
Moreover, if Darwin's hypothesis of a dun-coloured ancestor with
stripes is sound, dark colours such as bay and brown must be of
more recent origin, and accordingly there ought to be a great
readiness on the part of a progeny of a light-coloured animal when
mated with a dark to revert to the light. But Professor Ewart's
zebra stallion has never been able to stamp his own peculiar
pattern or his own colours on his hybrid offspring. The ground
colour has been determined by the dams of the hybrids."
INDEX
_Abiogenesis_, 49-51
_Ætiology_, 197
Agnosticism, Huxley's first principle of, 4
Its fundamental principle unreasonable, 272
American Museum and the pedigree of the Horse, 248
Amphibians, embryology, 195
"Anthropomorphism," 274, 275
_Archæopteryx_, 171
_Archebiosis_, 53
Argus pheasant, ornamentation, 175
_Arsinoetherium_, 267
Atlantic cable, an illustration from, of chance and purpose, 115
Atoms, 37, 41, 88, 89, 90, 136
Augustine, St.--on creation _causaliter et seminaliter_, 141, 207
_Axolotl_, 195
Baden-Powell, Prof.--on the nature of the First Cause, 276
Bastian, Dr. H. C.--on spontaneous generation, 21, 50, 53
_Bathybius Haeckelii_, 21