APPARITION OF SPECIES 93 



that it is millions of years since the first plant or 

 animal came into existence. 



2. The first forms were of low grades, though of 

 high and perfect types within those grades. 



3. Many types of animals and plants, perhaps 

 most of the leading groups, have continued without 

 any very manifest change or improvement have 

 been, in short, fixed or stationary types. 



4. Elevation and improvement have taken place 

 by the introduction, apparently in many places 

 simultaneously, of new types, accompanied with, or 

 preceded by, the extinction or degradation of lower* 

 forms. 



5. Many new forms appear to be introduced at 

 one time and apparently suddenly, so that such 

 groups as the ferns and club-mosses and mares tails 

 among plants, and at a later date the more perfect 

 fruit-bearing trees, the coral animals, the lamp-shells, 

 the crinoids, the amphibians, the reptiles, the higher 

 mammals enter on the scene abruptly and in large 

 numbers. Thus the impression left on our minds by 

 this grand procession of living beings in geological 

 time is not that of a mere continuous flow, but that 

 of a co-operation of physical agencies toward a par 

 ticular preparation of our planet, and then the intro 

 duction at once and in great force of suitable in- * 

 habitants to the abode prepared for them. 



This indicates not a mere spontaneous evolution, 

 but a progressive plan carried on by a great variety 



