270 RELICS OF PRIMEVAL LIFE 



in the case of the primeval Foraminifers, whether 

 with reference to the derivation from them of other 

 Protozoa or of higher forms of Hfe ? 



There is no Hnk whatever in geological fact to 

 connect Eozoon with any of the MoUusks, Radiates, 

 or Crustaceans of the succeeding Palaeozoic. What 

 may be discovered in the future we cannot con- 

 jecture ; but at present these stand before us as 

 distinct creations. It would, of course, be more pro- 

 bable that Eozoon should be the ancestor of some 

 of the Foraminifera of the Primordial age, but 

 strangely enough it is very dissimilar from all these 

 except Cryptozoon ; and here, as already stated, the 

 evidence of minute structure fails to a great extent, 

 and Eozoon Bavaricum of the Huronian age scarcely 

 helps to bridge over the gap which yawns in our 

 imperfect geological record. Of actual facts, there- 

 fore, we have none ; and those evolutionists who 

 have regarded the dawn-animal as an evidence in 

 their favour, have been obliged to have recourse to 

 supposition and assumption. 



Taking the ground of the derivationist, it is con- 

 venient to assume (i) that Eozoon was either the first 

 or nearly the first of animals, and that, being a Pro- 

 tozoan of simple structure, it constitutes an appro- 



