84 EXPLANATIONS. 



a mass of confusion, resulting from erroneous 

 assumptions on his own part respecting the de- 

 velopment theory, as that the orders of animals are 

 all to be affiliated to each other, and every pa- 

 rental form held as extinguished by the fact of 

 transmutation (the latter being a peculiarly gra- 

 tuitous supposition — see p. 50 of the Review) ; 

 together with equally rash and unjustified con- 

 clusions regarding the earliest forms of the 

 reptilian orders, all mixed up in the way that 

 promised to tell most effectually in favour of 

 his own opinion, and with a disregard of every 

 thing that pointed in the opposite direction. The 

 great unquestioned facts of a succession of birds 

 and mammals to the fishes and reptiles, these 

 being also the next higher classes in the scale of 

 the naturalist, tell nothing to this writer, as the 

 succession of the reptiles to the fishes told 

 nothing before. From the slight remarks with 

 which he passes over these facts, an unlearned 

 reader would hardly suppose that they were of 

 the least significance, while, in reality, they are of 

 the greatest. It is much the same as if an historian 

 were to sink all such events as changes of 

 dynasties, and fix attention upon the displace- 

 ment of under-secretaries of state. And what 



