FOSSILS AND GIANTS 39 



bigny, Sedgwick, Murchison, Smith, Lyell and 

 others, showed that there was a gradual develop- 

 ment from the forms of life which characterize the 

 earlier geological ages to those which appeared at 

 later epochs. From the simple, primitive forms of 

 the lower Silurian Age there was a steady progres- 

 sion towards the higher and more specialized types 

 of the Quaternary. 



Did this succession betoken genetic connection? 

 Were the higher and later forms genealogically de- 

 scended from the simpler antecedent types? Was 

 there here, in a word, evidence of organic Evolution? 



Controversy in the French Academy. 



Such questions had been suggested before but 

 they were now asked in all seriousness, and by those 

 most competent to interpret the facts of paleontol- 

 ogy. A storm was brewing in the scientific world, 

 and when, in 1830, it burst in the French Acad- 

 emy, in the celebrated contest between Cuvier and 

 Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, it created an unpre- 

 cedented sensation in the whole of Europe, notwith- 

 standing the great political excitement of the time. 



An anecdote, told of Goethe, shows in what light 

 the great poet-philosopher viewed the dispute which 

 was to have such an important bearing on the ques- 

 tion of the origin of species. The news of the out- 

 break of the French Revolution of July had just 

 reached Weimar, and the whole town was in a state 

 of excitement. " In the course of the afternoon," 

 says Soret, " I went around to Goethe's. ' Now,' 

 exclaimed he to me, as I entered, 'what do you 



