FOSSIL PEDIGREES 76 



formation, of species. The idea of variable inheritance did not 

 occur to'St. Augustine, and he conceived organisms, once they 

 were in existence, as being propagated exclusively by univocal 

 reproduction {generatio univoca). It is the fixist, therefore, 

 rather than the transformist, who is entitled to exploit the 

 Augustinian hypothesis. In fact, it is only the vicious am- 

 biguity and unlimited elasticity of the term evolution, which 

 avail to extenuate the astounding confusion of ideas and total 

 lack of historic sense, that can bracket together under a 

 common term the ideology of Darwin and the view of St. 

 Augustine. 



§ 2. The Argument in the Concrete 



But it is our task to criticize the theory of transformism, 

 and not to throw a life-line to fixism, by advocating gradual 

 formation of species as the only feasible alternative to gradual 

 transformation of species. Perhaps, this particular life-line 

 will not be appreciated any way ; for the fixist may, not with- 

 out reason, prefer to rest his case on the contention that the 

 intrinsic time-value of geological formations is far too proble- 

 matic for certain conclusions of any sort. In maintaining 

 this position, he will have the support of some present-day 

 geologists, and can point, as we shall see, to facts that seem 

 to bear out his contention. In fact, the cogency of the palse- 

 ontological argument appears to be at its maximum in the 

 abstract, and to evaporate the moment we carry it into the 

 concrete. The lute seems perfect, until we begin to play 

 thereon, and then we discover certain rifts that mar the effect. 

 It is to these rifts that our attention must now be turned. 



The first and most obvious flaw, in the evolutionary inter- 

 pretation of fossil series, is the confounding of succession 

 with filiation. Thinkers, from time immemorial, have com- 

 mented on the deep chasm of distinction, which divides his- 

 torical from causal sequence, and philosophers have never 

 ceased to inveigh against the sophistical snare of: Post hoc, 

 ergo prompter hoc. That one form of life has been subsequent 



