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CHAPTER XX 



THE ORIGIN OF THE EARLIEST ANI- 

 MALS— EOGENESIS 



THE third of the three sets of facts to be con- 

 sidered in connection with the development of 

 animal forms is perhaps the most puzzling and 

 the most extraordinary. It has always been the chief 

 obstacle in the way of the successful development 

 of a theory of evolution which shall assign to every 

 animal type a fixed, definite and logical position in 

 relation to every other animal type. 



No matter how far back we go in the fossil record 

 of previous animal life upon the earth we find no 

 trace of any animal forms which are intermediate 

 between the various major groups or phyla. 



This can only mean one thing. There can be only 

 one interpretation of this entire lack of any inter- 

 mediates between the major groups of animals — as 

 for instance between the backboned animals or ver- 

 tebrates, the echinoderms, the mollusks and the 

 arthropods. 



If we are willing to accept the facts we must believe 

 that there never were such intermediates, or in other 

 words that these major groups have from the very 

 first borne the same relation to each other that they 

 bear today. 



Is this creationism? Not at all. All living things 

 are derived from other living things. Furthermore, 



