The Evolution of Organisms 151 



Let me quote a paragraph freely translated from 

 Gaudry: 



"The organic world as a whole has made progress. 

 Suppose a voyager on the oceans of ages; in the Cam- 

 brian times his barque meets trilobites, but no fishes; he 

 nears the shore, and there is the silence of death. After 

 long voyaging he finds himself at the end of the Primary 

 era; fishes have replaced trilobites, and on land there is 

 no longer silence. Here is the tramp and cry of reptiles 

 who prophesy the advent of warm-blooded vertebrates. 

 The traveller sails from age to age, and reaches the middle 

 of the Secondary era. Charmingly beautiful ammonites 

 play around his vessel, legions of belemnites mingle with 

 them; ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and teleosaurs follow his 

 track. He goes ashore, and the giant deinosaurs resting 

 on their tails open their huge arms; pterodactyls and 

 other dragons swoop aloft; the first bird tries its wings, 

 and some small mammals show face timidly. Nature, 

 marvellous in the Primary ages, has become yet more 

 marvellous; it has made progress. If our traveller be not 

 fatigued with his long wanderings, he will find in the 

 Tertiary ages the first monkeys and horses, and a thou- 

 sand other mammals. Later on he will find himself the 

 man artist and poet minister and interpreter of nature 

 the man who thinks and prays. Truly, the history of 

 the world as a whole is the history of a progressive evolu- 

 tion. Where will this solution lead us?" 



Looking back again at the more than plausibly 

 worked-out history of backboned animals, we see 

 that the evolution is marked by a progressive differ- 

 entiation of the nervous system, and that the use 

 made of this is to adapt the organism more per- 



