132 BVOLU-TION AND DOGMA. 



reptile." The pterodactyl was a reptile which was 

 avi-form and capable of flying. The compsognathus, 

 like the archceopteryx, was intermediate in form be- 

 tween a reptile and a bird, but was probably rather 

 an avian reptile than a reptilian bird. 



Again we have such fossil vertebrates as Cuvier's 

 anoplotherium, which was intermediate in charac- 

 ter between pigs and ruminants ; the palaotherium 

 which connected together such dissimilar animals 

 as the horse, the tapir, and the rhinoceros. More 

 remarkable still are the generalized types known as 

 the condylarthra, the primitive form of which Cope 

 considers the common ancestor of all true mam- 

 malia. 1 



And so we might mention other synthetic types 

 brought to light by Gaudry, Rutimeyer, and other 

 paleontologists. It was, indeed, M. Gaudry 's re- 

 searches in Attica, where he discovered an extraor- 

 dinary number of gradational forms among the 

 higher vertebrates, which convinced him that Evolu- 

 tion is the only theory that is competent to ex- 

 plain the existence of those remarkable connecting 

 types which are every day, thanks to the investiga- 

 tions now conducted throughout the world, becom- 

 ing more numerous and marvelous. "A few strokes 

 of the pick-axe at the foot of Mount Pentelicus," 

 says the eminent French savant, "have revealed to 

 us the closest connecting links between forms which 

 before seemed very widely separated." 



How much closer and more remarkable these 

 links will become with the progress of research, when 



1 Cf. " Origin of the Fittest," pp. 343, et seq. 



