THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 7 



like new creations, was wholly unknown to him. And 

 surely these considerations, these discoveries of a cen- 

 tury of scientific activity, can not be ignored in forming 

 our answer to the question of the origin of species. 



Some half a century after Linnaeus, another natural- 

 ist, still greater than he, gave himself to the study of 

 homologies, and formed a classification 

 The answer of ^^ ^jj animals on the basis of the resem- 

 Cuvier. , , .... . 



blances seen in their plans of organi- 

 zation. It was known to him that there had been many 

 changes in the history of life, and that the forms now 

 living are but a tithe of the total number of those which 

 have existed. 



So the answer of Cuvier was substantially this : There 

 have been many creations and destructions of life in the 

 history of the earth. So far as we can see, it appears that 

 there are as many species now as there were different 

 forms created by the Infinite Being at the beginning of 

 the present geological era. 



But it was not easy to show just when the present 

 era began, and the reasons for believing in the repeated 

 total extinctions and creations became less and less 

 strong the more closely the evidence was examined. 

 Nor was it clear why the new creations should be as 

 it were merely modified duplicates of the creatures which 

 had preceded them. Why should the Creator, for in- 

 stance, in covering the earth with a new creation, carry 

 it right on in the same lines as the old one ? Why 

 should he give us not merely birds, reptiles, insects, 

 shells, and ferns as before, but birds, reptiles, insects, 

 shells, and ferns only to be distinguished from their pre- 

 decessors by the most careful study of men who have 

 given their lives to such discriminations? 



And then there were some men in Cuvier's time who 

 were not satisfied with the answer of Cuvier. Such men 



