EVOLUTION 



is so closely like the dasyure, and the agouti is so like 

 the paca, that we must bracket then two and two, as 

 written above. So manifold are these respective points 

 of likeness that even if white spots on a brown ground 

 were not found in certain deer, as well as in other animals, 

 they would necessarily cease to have any weight in com- 

 parison with the vast preponderance of likeness over 

 dissimilarity shown by the other parts of the body. In 

 this case an enormous majority of points of likeness or 

 difference indicates the relative closeness of the affinity. 

 It is not safe, however, to trust to majorities in zoo- 

 logical as in other matters, or else we might soon find 

 ourselves in the position of the orator who asserted that 

 if his adversary had documents, so had he, and he held 

 that one document was as good as another. For one 

 character is not as good as another, and arguments 

 based upon any leaning towards such a view would be 

 sure to be fallacious. The question is, what characters 

 are we to go by ? The answer to this question is clear 

 enough ; but to apply the method indicated by the 

 proper answer is far from being so easy. We may take 

 for granted the fact (as it has been rightly termed) of 

 Evolution. Whatever may be the truth of the various 

 theories, such as Natural Selection, which have been 

 advanced as explanatory of evolution, there has been 

 since the beginning of time as we read it in the rocks, a 

 continual series of changes in animals. As already 

 intimated we can trace pedigrees in a few cases with 

 certainty ; in other cases intermediate steps have been 

 lost or not discovered, but the broad outlines are left. 

 Thus amphibians appear before reptiles, and reptiles 

 before mammals. From one or other of these groups 

 mammals must have arisen. It is not at present 

 agreed, the evidence is not yet conclusive on the matter, 

 from which group mammals have arisen ; but it is clear 

 that marked traces of characters which are not distinc- 



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