94 Permanence and Evolution. 



ture on a subject which cannot be elucidated by 

 known causes, but to acquiesce in ignorance, 

 while abstaining also from the negative presump- 

 tion of dogmatically asserting that we shall 

 never know the origin of living types. 



The hypothesis of evolution is so vague that it 

 may be used to explain anything. Darwin was 

 much impressed by seeing fossil remains of huge 

 Edentata in South America, where smaller 

 Edentata make up a considerable part of the 

 existing fauna, and had the hypothesis of evo- 

 lution suggested to him ; but he might have seen 

 fossil Edentata in North America and Europe, 

 where none exist now, and as they have become 

 extinct, while other contemporary types have 

 .survived, evidently there have been influences at 

 work all over the world, the nature of which we 

 cannot in any way fathom, hostile to the pre- 

 servation of Edentata, and these evidently worked 

 less in South America than elsewhere. Under 

 these circumstances it is not very accordant with 



