92 THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD 



Edward Cope, the work of Gaudry remains far 

 behind that of the American palaeontologist in the 

 scope of the views, the breadth of the ideas, the 

 extent of the knowledge, and the originality of the 

 principles of transformist philosophy, which the 

 two scholars studied on parallel lines. Truth to 

 say, there cannot be discovered either in the En- 

 chainements or in the Paleontologie Philosophique 

 any really new theory on the subject of evolution. 

 The Unity of the plan of Creation, the Constant 

 progress of the animated world since the appearance 

 of the first beings down to existing nature and man, 

 " who in himself sums up all its marvels," such is 

 the general theme which pervades the whole work 

 of Gaudry. But do we not know that the principle 

 of the progressive development of the organic world 

 was already, as we have seen above, in germ in the 

 works of Georges Cuvier, and had been set forth in 

 all its details by Darwin, by Haeckel, by Huxley, 

 and by so many other masters of the transformist 

 school ? Gaudry, however, tried to rejuvenate 

 the idea by seeking manifold proofs of it among fossil 

 beings, either in their general multiplication on the 

 surface of the globe, or in their differentiation and 

 their growth, or, again, in the special progress of 

 their activity, their sensibility, and their intelligence. 

 Let us examine, with Gaudry, a few examples of 

 this assumed progress of beings. 



The peopling of the globe by the successive faunas 

 which have taken possession of it was facilitated, 

 according to Gaudry, " through the first arrivals 

 being better protected or less attacked than their 

 descendants." It is thus that the Polyps of 



