222 Miscellaneous. 



The origin of all the diversity among living beings remains a mystery 

 as totally unexplained as if the book of Mr. Darwin had never been 

 written, for no theory unsupported by fact, however plausible it may 

 appear, can be admitted in science. 



It seems generally admitted that the work of Darwin is particularly 

 remarkable for the fairness with which he presents the facts adverse 

 to his views. It may be so ; but I confess that it has made a very 

 different impression upon me. I have been more forcibly struck by 

 his inability to perceive when the facts are fatal to his argument, 

 than by anything else in the whole work. His chapter on the 

 Geological Record, in particular, appears to me, from beginning to 

 end, as a series of illogical deductions and misrepresentations of the 

 modern results of Geology and Palaeontology. I do not intend to 

 argue here, one by one, the questions he has discussed. Such argu ■ 

 ments end too often in special pleading ; and any one familiar with 

 the subject may readily perceive where the truth lies, by confronting 

 his assertions with the geological record itself. But since the ques- 

 tion at issue is chiefly to be settled by palseontological evidence, and 

 1 have devoted the greater part of my life to the special study of the 

 fossils, I wish to record my protest against his mode of treating this 

 part of the subject. Not only does Darwin never perceive when the 

 facts are fatal to his views, but when he has succeeded by an ingenious 

 circumlocution in overleaping the facts, he would have us believe 

 that he has lessened their importance or changed their meaning. He 

 would thus have us believe that there have been periods during which 

 all that had taken place during other periods was destroyed, — and this 

 solely to explain the absence of intermediate forms between the 

 fossils found in successive deposits, for the origin of which he looks 

 to those missing links; whilst every recent progress in geology 

 shows more and more fully how gradual and successive all the 

 deposits have been which form the crust of our earth. — He would 

 have us believe that entire faunae have disappeared before those were 

 preserved, the" remains of which are found in the lowest fossiliferous 

 strata ; when we find everywhere non-fossiliferous strata below those 

 that contain the oldest fossils now known. It is true he explains 

 their absence by the supposition that they were too delicate to be 

 preserved; but any animals from which Crinoids, Brachiopods, 

 Cephalopods, and Trilobites could arise, must have been sufficiently 

 similar to them to have left, at least, traces of their presence in the 

 lowest non-fossiliferous rocks, had they ever existed at all. — He 

 would have us believe that the oldest organisms that existed were* 

 simple cells, or something like the lowest living beings now in exist- 

 ence ; when such highly organized animals as Trilobites and Ortho- 

 ceratites are among the oldest known. — He would have us believe 

 that these lowest first-born became extinct in consequence of the 

 gradual advantage some of their more favoured descendants gained 

 over the majority of their predecessors ; when there exist now, and 

 have existed at all periods in past history, as large a proportion of 

 more simply organized beings, as of more favoured types, and when 

 such types as Lingula were among the lowest Silurian fossils, and are 



