lived in salt water.* Let no one flatter | fossiliferous strata, have sometimes had himself that they could have been carried recourse to supposing that there have to their tomb in the mountain by the been a large number of successive creaNoachian deluge. The deluge could not tions of plants and animals, and that the have dropped Oolitic shells on one moun- earth was cleared and made void of one, tain and Silurian shells on another. It before another was introduced. could not have inserted organisms of the The very evidence, however, which has carboniferous period into the middle of led to this supposition unmistakably a hill, neither could it have laid them on proves its futility. Examine the fossils the top, and then neatly covered them up of geological eras far distant from one anwith another thousand feet of stratifica- other, and the earth will seem, to be sure, tion. If the deluge sprinkled shells and at the first glance to have changed the other remains on the hill surfaces, what character of its population in the successprinkled them below the surfaces, what sive intervals. Forms familiar at one kept up the sprinkling till the thickness epoch, later on will have disappeared, and of whole mountains became penetrated forms not to be found in the earlier periwith the relics of life? No sane person, ods will present themselves abundantly when brought face to face with the actual in the later. But examine the fossils of fossils, will believe that the Creator of geological periods immediately succeedthe universe made figures by original ing one another, and it at once becomes creation, of plants and animals, both ter- apparent that there is no point whatever restrial and marine, and shut them up in in the world's history of which you can rocks of clay and flint and marble. Still say, Here the old forms seem to have less will any one believe Him to have ori- been swept off, and a new set introduced. ginally created in stone the images of dis- There is not the slightest evidence of the membered bodies and fragmentary limbs, sudden extinction of species or genera; in every degree of distortion and decay, à fortiori, none of the extinction of down to the merest trace of organic groups or whole creations. The disapstructure. Yet what do we find among pearances are gradual; there is no conthe sculptures of the rocks? Here the current disappearance of a large number skeleton of a whale, there a grasshopper's of species. The new forms are gradually wing, tree trunks, and fronds of ferns, introduced; there is no simultaneous ingnawed bones and sharp teeth, bits of troduction of a large number. Between Lobster, shells of turtle, rats' tails and ti- the organic structures of one age and gers' skulls, the burrow of the sea-worm, those of an age directly subsequent, even the foot-mark of the wader, and the very where there are considerable differences, ripple of the tide. We find in the chalk there is in every case also strong general the palatal teeth of shark with the crowns resemblance. Descent with variation exworn as though by long usage; we find actly explains this phenomenon. "tests" of the sea-urchin denuded of doctrine of successive annihilations and their spines and covered with crania-creations leaves it unexplained and inexvalves and serpulæ and polyzoa. The plicable. Would any wise master buildcatalogue of similar facts might be con- er, who wished to make some slight imtinued without end. The conclusion is inevitable that the formation of the earth's crust has been the slow work of countless ages. The fossil ripple mark was no miraculous effect of sudden creation, but produced by a rippling wave. The fossil zoophyte-case must once have been tenanted by a living zoophyte as the fossil integument of the sea-urchin by a living sea-urchin, and both must have lived in the waters of the ocean at periods of incalculable antiquity, before they were found fossil in the quarries of an inland range of hills. The provement in the structure of his house, pull down the whole fabric and rebuild it from the foundations almost a counterpart of what it was before, and do this not once only, nor twice, but again and again, times without number? Yet men are not ashamed to attribute to the supremacy of the Divine wisdom a course of conduct which in any one of their own fellows they would recognize as extravagantly foolish. Adopt for one moment the favourite theory of special creative interpositions, and apply it to the history of the genus Lingula. The Lingula is a brachioPersons who well knew, and were pod with a horny shell of two nearly equal forced to admit, the succession of life dur-valves. Between the beaks of the two ing the formation of the vast series of valves passes a long fleshy peduncle or * Lyell's Manual, p. 5. foot stalk, by means of which the animal attaches itself to submarine bodies. Mus cles for various purposes are attached to pled, is a belief that can only be held in the shell, upon the interior of which their most glaring defiance of scientific eviimpressions are left, long after the death dence. As a clever writer recently oband decay of the animal, so as to be found served, "There are some things which even in fossils of great antiquity. In the you cannot really believe unless all your Lower Silurian period was created Lin- neighbours keep you in countenance."* gula Lesueuri, besides a great many other This is one of them. The thing is credispecies of Lingula. Lesueuri perishes, ble on one condition, and on one condiand in the Devonian period a new form is tion alone, namely, that human reason created, remarkably like the old one, and and the facts of external nature have known among men as Lingula squami- been so ingeniously adapted to one anformis. Squamiformis comes to a bad other by the Author of both, that a man end, and the carboniferous era is ushered cannot honestly employ his reason in the in. "But here a wonder came to light." observation of nature without being Squamiformis reappears, or something so mocked and cheated, and impelled to belike it as to baffle the discriminating pow-lieve what is false. It comes, in short, ers of the very best conchologists. The to this, that, far up to where the Himasame thing happens with Lingula myti- layan summits smile proudly above the loides, another carboniferous species, clouds, far down to the deepest gloom which is repeated in the Permian age. that the miner's lamp has ever peneThese forms cease to exist, and Lingula rated, the Maker of the world must have Beanii is presented to us in the Fauna of the Oolite; and successively Lingula truncata in the lower Greensand, subovalis in the upper Greensand, Lingula tenuis in the Eocene London Clay, Dumortieri in the Coralline crag of the Pleiocene era. All these, and a great many more, presenting in many cases differences that can scarcely be called distinctions, proved unsatisfactory to their Creator and were ruthlessly abolished. But a Lingula the world must have. Creation would be incomplete without a Lingula. And, consequently, about twenty-four hours before the creation of Adam, Lingula anatina suddenly made its appearance, and still flourishes in the shallow waters of tropical seas. Mr. Davidson, in his admirable monograph of the Brachiopoda, tells us that not only Lingula, but also "Discina, Crania, and Rhynconella, appear to have traversed the whole geological, vertical range; they appear in the older Silurian deposits, and with similar or but slight modifications in character, are still represented in our seas by a limited number of species." The supply of parallel facts is almost inexhaustible. Take any age of the world you will: the fauna of that age, that is, the whole group of animals then existing on the globe, is inextricably interwoven with the fauna of the age that precedes, and the fauna of the age that follows it. That at any recent date, or at any date whatever, from the Silurian period to our own times, the earth has been swept clean of its inhabitants and re-peo Pal. Soc. 1853. Fossil Brachiopoda of Great stored the ground with an endless variety of forms, arranged in orderly sequence, so as irresistibly to teach certain lessons to the human mind, and that then He wrote a few lines on a scrap of papyrus to intimate that the lessons were untrue, and that all the vast apparatus for teaching them meant nothing at all. There is another hypothesis which needs to be disposed of. Everyone will admit that since the beginning of the creation, some species have died out and become extinct. The cyrtoceras is no more. The trilobite is wanting. Drop a tear over the ashes of the ichthyosaurus; we shall not see his like again. Never more shall archæopteryx macrura waggle his flexible tail. As thousands of species have disappeared from the living world, it has seemed reasonable to many persons to admit, what the evidence of geology very plainly declares, that while some species have been dying out, others have from time to time been introduced. But the question is, how were they introduced? And the popular answer to this question, an answer upon which some persons think that all religion depends, is, that they were introduced in each case by original creation. As the extinction of species is still going on, and yet the world seems to present as great a variety as ever, the introduction of species, even in the present day, is admitted as possible or probable. And if the introduction must take place by original creation, it has been well put by a distinguished man of science, that any morning you might Pall Mall Gazette, November 15, 1871. ↑ Lyell's Elements of Geology, p. 394. find an elephant standing on your lawn, | cies, varieties, with their several subjust created. But such a thing no one orders, sub-genera, and sub-varieties, would believe possible, unless all his till you come to the division into individneighbours kept him in countenance. No uals, and the interesting question, far less one can listen to such an expectation easy to solve than to propose, What is without ridiculing its absurd improbabil- an individual? mam ity, although many calmly enough sup- The first sub-kingdom comprises five pose that there was once a day when not classes, in the following orderonly the elephant suddenly made its as-mals, birds, reptiles, amphibia, and fishes. tonished and astonishing appearance, but The second sub-kingdom comprises when every other creature that breathes what shall we say? We cannot tell what made its appearance in like manner. It to say until we know which is the second has been argued that new species may in sub-kingdom. By affinity of structure fact be introduced into the world from the Mollusca come nearest to the Vertetime to time suddenly, and by original brates, but the sagacious ant and brave creation, but that these occurrences, industrious bee seem to plead for the either accidentally, because they are so claims of the Arthropoda as far superior rare, or through the purposely secret to those of "oysters and so forth." It working of the Creator, taking place in appears that whatever characters of imocean depths or deserts where no men portance we choose upon which to base abide, have ever escaped the gaze of our classification, confusion invariably human curiosity. All other suppositions arises in some quarter or another from on the question have some sanction in conflicting claims. This appears in aranalogy, in observation, or in the reputed ranging even the classes of the verteauthority of Scripture. This last suppo- brates. The mammals take an indisputsition has none of these sanctions. Its able precedence, because man is a mamchief and only merit is that there is no mal. But, not to speak of birds, many direct way of testing the truth of it. It gives a mean and inconsistent idea of the Creator, as planting in men's breasts a spirit of enquiry, and then dodging them like a Will-o'-the-wisp, in their eager but necessarily fruitless pursuit. reptiles surpass many mammals in size, strength, and beauty, in adaptation of structure to a great variety of circumstances, and even in intelligence. Man himself is prone to claim an unlimited superiority over all other animals by The animal kingdom has been divided virtue of his reason; and because of this by authors of repute into seven sub-king- possession, which he often fancies to be doms.* The lowest place is occupied by exclusively his own, he disdains the nothe Protozoa, to which sponges and infu- tion of an origin, however remote, from sorial animals belong; the highest is as- any creature unlike, or unequal to the signed by common consent to the Verte- present magnificence of humanity. He brata, comprising in their ranks sprats would do well to consider the recent date and men, baboons and skylarks, the cobra of his supremacy, and how far from uniand the frog. Between these two ex-versal still it remains. Measured by the tremes must be ranged the other five subkingdoms. The relative rank of these is less easy to determine. They are by the Mollusca, among which are found the oyster and the sea-squirt; the Arthropoda, comprehending butterflies, spiders, and crabs; the Vermes, or worms; the Echinodermata, containing the sea-urchin and the star-fish; and, lastly the Cœlenterata, lowest of the five in organization, but comprehending corals and corallines, which the higher divisions cannot surpass, if even they can rival them, in beauty. name For purposes of classification these seven sub-kingdoms are again sub-divided into classes, orders, families, genera, spe Forms of Animal Life. By G. Rolleston, D.M., F.R.S. Introduction, p. xxvi. general estimate of man's unbounded lordship, the tribute which is annually paid in India to poisonous snakes and ravening tigers seems rather a large one. Of parasites unwillingly entertained in the very throne of reason, the brain itself, it would be unpleasant to speak more particularly; but why, I wonder, if we are so indisputably supreme, do we not abolish rats and earwigs? It would be interesting to know whether more sharks are slain by men or more men slain by sharks in the course of a year. Our superiority looks rather small when examined in detail. The eagle and the lynx have keener sight, the hound an acuter sense of smell. We cry in vain for the wings of a dove. We tax our ingenuity to build ocean-traversing steamers with high-pressure engines, and when these vehicles put forth their best speed little birds fly easily round | down to our own times, husbands and different them. Hundreds of animals can mock wives, fathers and children, have been the efforts of the swiftest human pursuer. separated and assigned to The elephant and many other creatures groups and genera. We say proudly surpass us in size and strength, the cat that man is his own classifier; but which and others in agility. In love we are less man, if you please? Let the most intelconstant than the pigeon. In war, how ligent of my candid readers answer for noble a picture we present! how lofty an themselves how much they have had to example we set before the hawk and the do with the classification of the animal tiger of mild good faith, serene benevo- kingdom. The best naturalists are still lence, abstemious relf-restraint, and ten-disputing whether men, the bimana, der pity for our fellow-creatures! Of should be an order by themselves, or The mapersonal beauty it is needless to speak; ranged alongside of the quadrumana as a on that point one half of the human race, section of the order Primates. negresses and Esquimaux squaws includ-jority of mankind, even in these days of ed, must of course be supreme, in spite enlightenment, are content to follow, on of all the gazelles, and zoophytes, and one side or the other, the few leaders of peacocks, and birds-of-paradise in the opinion. In regard to facts discovered and arguments founded upon the discoverworld. ies, most of us are but too happy if we can do a little gleaning after the reapers, a little picking up of crumbs from beneath the tables of the rich. When we say "most of us," when we speak of "the majority of mankind," we refer only to those who give the subject a thought, for, compared with the whole mass of human beings on the globe, it is pretty certain that those who think or know anything The grasp about the classification of the animal kingdom are only a handful. of the subject obtained by a few industrious students, and the progress made in it by men of exceptional genius, are both of them largely due to the accumulation of experience and diffusion of knowledge made possible by the invention of printing. Printing itself was man's invention; but surely an animal cannot be transferred from one order to another by means of an invention. The art of printing, like many other contrivances evolved from the human mind, quite consistently with the law of natural selection though not precisely by that law, confirmed and carried forward man's general superiority over the other animals. In the same way tigers confirmed their general superiority over Indian villages when they invented the plan of hunting in couples, so that while one is being driven off by the wretched men at one end of the village, its companion carries off the still more wretched babies at the other. A remark has been made that "if man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought," as many naturalists have done, "of founding a separate order It is retorted for his own reception." * that man establishes his right to the exclusive position by exclusively possessing the power to classify. In Esop's fables a man debates this very question with a lion, and points out that in all pictures of contests between them, the lion is vanquished and the man prevails; to which the king of the forest makes reply, that if lions were the painters, men would be represented as the victims, and with much more fidelity to the facts of the case. It is indeed, not easy to see how the facts of the case can be in any way altered by the circumstance that men can paint and lions cannot. Men can classify; so, in a minor degree, can other animals. Dogs can distinguish strangers and acquaintances, well-dressed persons from persons in rags; the canine species from all other species. They cannot carry their classifications far, not from want of memory and intelligence, but from want of a well-devised language and printed books. Men can classify, but can they classify correctly? We are all agreed that the earth and the human race upon it are at least five or six thousand years old; and yet within the last hundred and twenty years parts of the very same structure, the so-called medusæ of the hydroid Zoophytes, and the stationary polypes. from which the medusæ come, were classified, not in two different species or genera merely, but in two different classes. Among the fishes, among the crustaceans, Descent of Man. Darwin. Vol. i. p. 191. One thing in mental development is to be noticed, that the improvement is not transmitted only, perhaps we should add, not chiefly, by inheritance in the direct line of its first possessor. A mind exalted and refined becomes, as it were, the food and sustenance of other minds, kingdom for ingenuity and perseverance? Insects are not vertebrates. Among the vertebrata themselves, why can the parrot imitate articulate language, while the clever faithful dog can only whine and bark? Why is man, the highest of the highest class, inferior to the gudgeon in swimming, to the rabbit in running, to the squirrel in climbing, to the flea in jumping, to the snake in wriggling, and unable to fly at all? whereby they also are refined and exalted, | Why do insects rank so high in the animal so that the refinement and exaltation are in the end transmitted, not through one only, but through many channels of inheritance. When we say that such and such a man was in advance of his time, we mean that other minds had not at that epoch so far beneficially varied as to be even capable of receiving the better food which he had become capable of supplying. Thus it is that with the mind as with the body, nature cannot, and obviously does not, select the absolute best; In entering now upon a more detailed but only the best under the circumstances. enquiry into the gradations observable It was long a favourite explanation of among the forms of organic life, it wili the similarities between animals in some be convenient to begin with the lowest, respects extremely unlike, that they had the simplest, and most remote from ourall been created upon the same general selves. Many persons think it incontype. That sounds very philosophical ceivable that a sponge and a man could and satisfactory; let us examine it a lit-have had a common origin, however far tle. The vertebrate type contains mam- back that origin might be placed. Let such mals, birds, reptiles, amphibia and fishes. persons imagine themselves, if they can, Here we have grouped together men, brought suddenly face to face with the monkeys, and whales, the eagle, the os- various specimens of humanity under its trich, and the apteryx, the crocodile, tor- various conditions. They would see a toise, and adder, the frog and the axolotl, little pink baby and a great black-bearded the sturgeon, the flounder, and the lance- man, the fair Saxon beauty, and the swarth let. By the theory we have mentioned, she-savage too hideous to describe, the the Creator is regarded as an artist hav- lady in court-dress and the Indian in his ing an idea in his mind which he chose war-paint, the stripling in his jacket and to work out in various ways, just as an the aged councillor in his flowing robe architect might employ Gothic architec- there would be "the heathen Chinee," ture in building a palace or a hovel, a and the Turk, and the Swiss peasant-girl, church or a linendraper's shop. It would soldiers and sailors, blacksmiths and bakbe a strange vagary in a human artist, ers, boys bathing and climbing trees, bawhen rearing a grand cathedral, to build bies in long clothes, and babies in short by its side a beer-shop in the very same clothes, lawyers pleading in wigs and style, but hideously caricatured; or, hav- gowns, coal-miners burrowing undering on one day designed a vile grotesque ground, tailors sitting cross-legged, and tenement, on the next day to choose that a thousand other varieties, in age, cospattern, of all others, for the noblest of tume, complexion, tools and occupations. his works. Yet this is what the Divine In grades and diversities of intellect there artist is charged with having done in re- would be, besides the idiot and the magard to man and the baboon. With in- niac, the infant unable to speak or to finite variety at His command He is sup- reason, the booby school-boy, the man of posed to have employed one idea for a common sense, the genius without it, the thousand different purposes-now and girl sweetly illogical, the prudent dame. then, as in the lancelet, almost losing In the manner of feeding, how great a sight of it altogether; at other times car- variety would appear among these anirying it a little too far, as in giving man mals! Some would be seen parasitical at the rudiment of a useless tail; just as if the breast, others dipping their fingers in man could not have been a vertebrate common in the dish, some conveying food without that rudiment. Why should a to their mouths with chop-sticks, others type, an abstract idea, an ideal plan, or delicately handling silver forks and the whatever else you are pleased to call it, best Sheffield cutlery. In weapons of have been worked out into useless de- war the differences would be found still tails? And if creation according to ideal more numerous, intricate and surprising, types cannot explain these rudimentary from chips of flint and stakes hardened structures, what can it explain? Why in the fire up to the very latest refineis the eye of a cuttle-fish so like the eye ments of civilized humanity. To comof a man? You cannot answer that it is plete the parallel, along with the other "because the cuttle-fish is a vertebrate." representative persons there should be |