FOSSIL PEDIGREES 73 



know for instance that there were no mammals in Palaeozoic 

 times? 'May there not have been mammals somewhere on 

 the earth though no vestige of them has come down to us? 

 We may feel confident there were no mammals then, but are 

 we sure? In very ancient rocks most of the great orders of 

 animals are represented. The absence of the others might 

 by no great stress of imagination be ascribed to accidental 

 circumstances." But the sudden rise of the Angiosperms in 

 the early part of the Mesozoic era is an instance of de novo 

 origin that is not so easily explained away. Hence Bateson 

 continues: ''Happily, however, there is one example of which 

 we can be sure. There were no Angiosperms — that is to say 

 'higher plants' with protected seeds — in the carboniferous 

 epoch. Of that age we have abundant remains of a world- 

 wide and rich flora. The Angiosperms are cosmopolitan. By 

 their means of dispersal they must immediately have become 

 so. Their remains are very readily preserved. If they had 

 been in existence on the earth in carboniferous times they 

 must have been present with the carboniferous plants, and 

 must have been preserved with them. Hence we may be sure 

 that they did appear on earth since those times. We are not 

 certain, using certain in the strict sense, that Angiosperms 

 are the lineal descendants of the carboniferous plants, but it is 

 much easier to believe that they are than that they are not.'' 

 {Science, Jan. 20, 1922, p. 58.) 



It would thus appear, that not all the organic types of 

 either the plant, or the animal, kingdom are of equal an- 

 tiquity, and that the belated rise of unprecedented forms has 

 the status of an approximate certainty, wherewith every theory 

 of origins must inevitably reckon. How, then, is the fixist 

 to reconcile this successive appearance of organisms with the 

 simultaneous "creation" advocated by St. Augustine and St. 

 Thomas of Aquin? Unless there be some other gradual process 

 besides transmutation, to bridge the interval between the crea- 

 tive fiat and the eventual appearance of modern types, there 

 seems to be no escape from the dilemma. 



