150 EXTINCT SPECIES. 



doubt as to the existence of tlie ostrich. In this mode of 

 expression there is nothing paradoxical ; and doubtless, when 

 we come to reflect upon it, the case will not fail to seem 

 a little strange, that we are so commonly in the habit of 

 testing the inequalities of beings by reference to systems, 

 instead of following the opposite course, viz. that of testing 

 the value and completeness of systems by reference to the 

 qualities of individuals they embrace. Naturalists invent a 

 system and make it their touchstone of truth; whereas the 

 real touchstone would be the creature systematised. The 

 ostrich . simply goes to prove that the zoological types ima- 

 gined by naturalists are endowed with less of the absolute 

 than philosophers in their pride of science had imagined. 

 Animal types are not the strangers to each other that arti- 

 ficial classifications would make them appear. 



Neither is flexibility of bird-type alone manifested by the 

 examples wherein a bird acquires characteristics of quadru- 

 peds and other walking animals. Wings may even become 

 metamorphosed into a sort of fins, thus establishing a con- 

 nection between bird-life and fish-life. This occurs in the 

 manchot, a bird not less aquatic in its habits than the seal 

 of flying and walking almost equally incapable a bird the na- 

 . tural locomotive condition of which is to be plunged in water 

 up to the neck. Assuredly nothing can be more absurd than 

 the attempt to recognise, in these ambiguous organisations, 

 so many attempts of nature to pass from one type to another. 



No matter what religious system one may have adopted, 

 or what philosophical code : the interpretation of Nature 

 according to which she is represented as making essays, 

 trying experiments, is alike inadmissible. Neither God omni- 

 scient, nor nature infallible, can be assumed by the philosopher 

 as trying experiments. There are, indeed, no essays, no experi- 

 ments in nature ; but degrees transitions. Wherefore these 

 transitions 1 is a question that brings Philosophy to bay, and 

 demonstrates her weakness. It is a question that cannot be 



