THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



as great changes, which, from one point of view, they 

 truly are. But, leaving the negative differences out of 

 consideration, and looking only at the positive data 

 furnished by the fossil world from a broader point of 

 view — from that of the comparative anatomist who 

 has made the study of the greater modifications of 

 animal form his chief business — a surprise of another 

 kind dawns upon the mind ; and under this aspect the 

 smallness of the total change becomes as astonishing 

 as was its greatness under the other. 



"There are two hundred known orders of plants; 

 of these not one is certainly known to exist exclusive- 

 ly in the fossil state. The whole lapse of geological 

 time has as yet yielded not a single new ordinal type 

 of vegetable structure. 



"The positive change in passing from the recent to 

 the ancient animal world is greater, but still singu- 

 larly small. No fossil animal is so distinct from those 

 now living as to require to be arranged even in a sepa- 

 rate class from those which contain existing forms. It 

 is only when we come to the orders, which may be 

 roughly estimated at about a hundred and thirty, 

 that we meet with fossil animals so distinct from 

 those now living as to require orders for themselves; 

 and these do not amount, on the most liberal estimate, 

 to more than about ten per cent of the whole. "^^ 



Enough has been quoted to justify the statement 

 that, in view of the immense diversity of known ani- 



"^"^ Discourses ; Biological and Geological Essays, pp. 292, 293. 



C 1523 



