6i 



can be preserved." None will deny then that 

 it would be wrong to suppose that even though 

 we had the entire geological record before us 

 and made an exhaustive examination oF its con 

 tents, we would be very far from anything like 

 an approximation of the varied species that 

 have at one time or other inhabited our globe. 

 Indeed, Spencer's words are nearer the truth, 

 that "even though we had before us every kind 

 of fossil which exists, we would have nothing 

 like a complete index to the past inhabitants of 

 the globe." So that the second assumption on 

 which Father Wasmann's conclusion is based 

 is groundless as the first. And just so with the 

 third. Supposing that we had before us the 

 complete pages of the geological record which 

 laid before us every specimen of organized 

 forms which that record contains, and suppos 

 ing also that each organism that ever lived up 

 on the earth had left behind some fossil remains. 

 Father Wasmann's conclusion would not yet 

 follow. For it is certain that numberless fossil 

 remains have in the course of ages been en 

 tirely destroyed. That fossils have been form 

 ed is no proof that those forms have been pre- 



