OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 181 



shows us the grand unity of plan which has character- 

 ized the fauna and flora of the world, and exhibits to 

 our view the direction Evolution must have taken in 

 its progress from the simple to the complex, from 

 the general to the special, from the primitive monad 

 to the highest vertebrate. Like the records of the 

 Egyptologist and the Assyriologist, those of the 

 student of the past history of the earth have been 

 imperfect and fragmentary in the extreme, but, not- 

 withstanding this, and notwithstanding the enormous 

 gaps which are everywhere discernible, the paleontol- 

 ogist has been able to give us an account which, 

 considering the difficulties under which it has been 

 written, all thoughtful minds must recognize as 

 singularly complete and satisfactory, even in many 

 of its details. 



Darwin, in closing Tiis interesting chapter on the 

 imperfection of the geological record, makes a com- 

 parison which so beautifully illustrates the character 

 of the materials from which the paleontologist must 

 weave his story of the earth and its former inhabi- 

 tants, that I reproduce it here in his own words: 

 " For my part, following Lyell's metaphor, I look at 

 the geological record as the history of the world, im- 

 perfectly kept and written in a changing dialect. Of 

 this history we possess the last volume alone, relating 

 only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only 

 here and there a short chapter has been preserved ; 

 and of each page, only here and there a few lines. 

 Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or 

 less different in the successive chapters, may repre- 

 sent the forms of life, which are entombed in our 



