54 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



arrived at the same conclusion by means of comparative 

 anatomy, recognized the true cause of this difierence. 

 This is disclosed to us by the Theory of Descent. The 

 wonderful and astonishing similarity in the inner organ- 

 ization and in the anatomical relations of structure, and 

 the still more remarkable agreement in the embryonic de- 

 velopment of all animals belonging to one and the same 

 type (for example, to the branch of the Vertebrate animals), 

 is explained in the simplest manner by the supposition of 

 their common descent from a single primary original form. 

 If this view is not accepted, then the complete agreement of 

 the most different Vertebrate animals, in their inner struc- 

 ture and their manner of development, remains perfectly 

 inexplicable. In fact it can only be explained by the law of 

 inheritance. 



Next to the comparative anatomy of animals and the 

 systematic zoology founded anew by it, it was specially to 

 the science of petrifactions, or Palaeontology, that Cuvier 

 rendered great service. We must draw special attention 

 to this, because these very palseontological views, and the 

 geological ideas connected with them, were held almost 

 universally in the highest esteem during the first half of 

 the present century, and caused the greatest hindrance to 

 the working out of a truly natural history of creation. 



Petrifactions, the scientific study of which Cuvier pro- 

 moted at the beginning of our century in a most ex- 

 tensive manner, and established quite anew for the Verte- 

 brate animals, play one of the most important parts in the 

 " non-miraculous history of creation." For these remains 

 and impressions of extinct animals and plants, preserved to 

 us in a petrified condition, are the true " monuments of the 



