DEFICIENXY OF INTERMEDIATE FORMS. 295 



with the didactyles and multidactyles, we should still not 

 deem the horse a special miraculous creation, but incon- 

 trovertibly deduce his true kinship with the other ungu- 

 lata. This pure deduction is not requisite, as the proge- 

 nitors of the horse are present in conspicuous remains ; 

 and, as we have already seen, elicited in R. Owen, half 

 a century ago, the conviction of a direct m.etamorphosis 

 of the tridactyle genera into the unidactyle. Our acquaint- 

 ance with the tridactyle horses was a lucky chance ; they 

 were indigenous in those parts of Europe which have 

 been most diligently laid bare and explored in behalf cf 

 Palaeontology. 



But that our museums are still destitute of the fossil 

 progenitors of man, is not more strange than the defi- 

 ciency, hitherto existing, of intermediate forms, which, 

 for example, would conclusively decide the position of 

 the Dinotherium in the system. We will also refer again 

 to the elephants, who, with their nearest ally, the 

 mastodon, occupy towards the other Pachydermata a 

 position elucidated by no fossils, and far more isolated 

 than that of man to the apes. We hope herewith to 

 have shown that the argument that, by peculiarities not 

 bridged over, — by upright gait, comparative hairlessness, 

 chin, preponderance of brain, &c., — man betrays a posi- 

 tion absolutely apart, cannot be admitted by comparative 

 anatomy and palaeontology. The demand, therefore, that 

 the adherents of the doctrine of Descent should produce 

 the intermediate forms which at one time necessarily 

 existed, can be made only by dilettantes to whom the 

 province of life, as a whole, has remained a sealed book. 



As we observed before, the bodily nature of man is 

 sometimes ceded to natural inquiry as a means of more 



