I ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG 23 



shall be able to reason from the facts with which 

 the geological record furnishes us to those which 

 have hitherto remained, and many of which, 

 perhaps, may for ever remain, hidden. The same 

 method of reasoning which enables us, when 

 furnished with a fragment of an extinct animal, to 

 prophesy the character which the whole organism 

 exhibited, will, sooner or later, enable us, when 

 we know a few of the later terms of a genea- 

 logical series, to predict the nature of the earlier 

 terms. 



In no very distant future, the method of Zadig, 

 applied to a greater body of facts than the present 

 generation is fortunate enough to handle, will 

 enable the biologist to reconstruct the scheme of 

 life from its beginning, and to speak as confidently 

 of the character of long extinct living beings, no 

 trace of which has been preserved, as Zadig did of 

 the queen's spaniel and the king's horse. Let us 

 hope that they may be better rewarded for their 

 toil and their sagacity than was the Babylonian 

 philosopher ; for perhaps, by that time, the magi 

 also may be reckoned among the members of a 

 forgotten Fauna, extinguished in the struggle for 

 existence against their great rival, common sense. 



