Permanence and Evolution. 79 



was simply different coloured strains of the same 

 type in one country, the transmutation being 

 read into the facts by preconceived hypothesis. 



An eminent naturalist finding that animals to 

 a certain degree intermediate between horse and 

 tapir existed before there is at present any 

 evidence of the existence of true horses, has 

 pronounced evolution no longer an hypothesis 

 but a proved fact, and has framed a pedigree 

 of the horse. But the genealogy is merely con- 

 jectural ; there is not the smallest positive 

 evidence of blood-connection between the sup- 

 posed links ; there is not the slightest evidence 

 even alleged of the possibility of such changes 

 as would be necessary to convert a hipparion 

 into a horse, or an orohippus into a hipparion ; 

 and if the geological record is as imperfect as 

 we know it to be, still more, as evolutionists 

 must suppose, it is almost useless attempting 

 to rely on negative evidence which has so often 

 deceived us. And it is even not wholly im- 



