416 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



ence out of nothing, or from a few pounds of chemical elements. Mr. 

 Parsons then remarked upon some of the facts in geology that seem 

 to favor this view ; particularly the noticeable circumstance, that, as 

 the great classes of animals succeed each other, they are not separated 

 by periods of nothingness, but lap over each other, and are joined by 

 connecting links. By way of illustration, he referred to trilobites, 

 which run up through all the paleozoic rocks ; and as they are begin- 

 ning to thin out, we have in the old red sandstone the Pterichthys and 

 the Cephalaspis, which was long held to be a trilobite of the genus of 

 Asaphus, until Agassiz determined both to be fishes ; and Mr. Parsons 

 quoted Murchison's statement, that he regarded them both as the con- 

 necting links between the Crustacea and the fishes. So after fishes 

 were well established, we have the Placodus, the Dendrerpeton, and 

 the Archegosaurus, all of which were for some time held by Agassiz 

 to be fishes, but, upon further and final investigation, were determined 

 by him to be reptiles ; and these may therefore be regarded as the 

 connecting links between fishes and reptiles, — between marine animals 

 and land animals. So, the line between the Protozoa and the Pi'oto- 

 phyta is constantly shifting and uncertain. And in the same connec- 

 tion, Mr. Parsons adverted to the singular fact, that man, who begins 

 in the uterus as a nucleated cell, or monad, on his way to birth puts on 

 the traces and characteristic indications of all the great families of 

 animals. Asserting that the time had come when science must either 

 adopt the doctrine of creation out of nothing, or else admit that new 

 ci'eatures may exist as the aberrant ofi^spring of kindred parents, he 

 preferred the latter ; nor did he think that reason or religion would be 

 shocked if science should hereafter declare it probable, that the earliest 

 human beings were not called into existence out of nothing, or directly 

 from the dust of the earth, but were children of Simite nearest in 

 structure to men, and were made, by some influence of variation, to 

 difl^er from their progenitors in having a brain and general structure 

 such, and so formed, that the breath of immortal life could be breatlied 

 into them, and distinguish them for ever from the animals from whom 

 and above whom they had risen. 



Professor Bowen replied at length to the arguments and 

 criticisms of Professor Gray, but reserves his remarks for 

 publication in another form. 



