218 SPECIES NOT 



one or two singular inconsistencies, which makes 

 me, a student in Natural History, not only scep- 

 tical of the writer's judgment, but doubtful of 

 the soundness of his inferences. 



1st. There is nothing upon which Mr. Darwin 

 more strongly insists, than that his theory is 

 incomplete, and not to be proved, by reason of 

 the 'imperfection of the geological record." Now 

 this writer occupies a considerable portion of his 

 article, in attempting to shew the truth of Mr. 

 Darwin's book, from the geological record. He 

 proves, however, nothing. The succession of 

 lonns in geological time is a fact, which no 

 geologist attempts to deny. "Organic remains," 

 says Professor Owen, "traced from their earliest 

 known graves, are succeeded one series by another 

 to the present period, and never re-appear, when 

 once lost sight of in the ascending search. And 

 not only as respects the vertebrata, but the sum 

 of the animal species, at each successive geolo- 

 gical period, has been distinct and peculiar to 

 such period." 



The reviewer, however, places the facts of a 

 successive analogous fauna, in a very different 

 light. "It may be stated with the highest pro- 

 liability, from the evidence of fossil remains, that 

 a very considerable proportion of those classes 

 of animals now living, whose bones or shells 

 afford means of comparison, are. the direct de- 

 scendants of animals, that existed before the 

 occurrence of those last great changes, which 

 gave to a large part of the surface of the 



