GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 05 



Observation, however, shows that the species of existing An- 

 thozoa cannot be traced very far back : those with a flexible, or 

 with a branched, calcareous axis began only at the tertiary period ; 

 and, of the genera of eocene lamellate or stony corals, all the 

 species are extinct, and have been superseded in their grand and 

 useful operations by those now forming reefs and atolls. As we 

 extend our researches back in time we find generic and family 

 types of coral-polypes passing away : the prevalent pattern 01 

 stellate cups of rays of six or its multiples, has superseded a 

 simpler pattern of four or its multiples. Of the CyathophyllidcB 

 of the palaeozoic reefs which present a quadripartite character of 

 their plaited polype-cells, not one such species now exists, or has 

 been observed in any formation later than lower green-sand. More- 

 over, the filling up of abandoned cells in the course of growth of 

 the polypary becomes changed from a more complex to a more 

 simple method, as we recede in time in pursuing our com- 

 parisons. 1 



With this generalised result of observation of reef-building 

 polypes we return to the initial question in a frame of mind inevi- 

 tably other than that in which the creation of a coral-Llaiid is 

 pondered on by one ignorant of the geological history of the class 

 engaged in its construction. Was direct creation, after the dying 

 out of its result as a ' rugose coral,' repeated to constitute the suc- 

 ceeding and superseding ' tabulate coral '? Must we, also, invoke 

 the miraculous power to initiate every distinct species of both 

 Rugosa and Tabulata ? These grand old groups have had their 

 day and are utterly gone. When we endeavour to conceive or 

 realise such mode of origin, not of them only, but of their manifold 

 successors, the miracle, by the very multiplication of its mani-* 

 festations, becomes incredible inconsistent with any worthy con- 

 ception of an all-seeing, all-provident Omnipotence ! It is not 

 above, but against, reason ; and I may assume the special primary 

 creative hypothesis of the successive and coexisting species of 

 Anthozoa to be not now held by the scientific naturalist. 



Let us then test the propounded explanations of their origin 

 by secondary law. That of ' appetency ' subsides from the impo-* 

 tency of a coral-polype to exercise volition. The weak point of 

 Lamarck's creative machinery is its limited applicability, viz., 

 to creatures high enough in the scale to be able to ' want to do 

 something : ' for the determined laws of the f reflex function ' in 

 the physiology of the nervous system and the necessity of the 



1 CLXXX, pp. 23-28. 



