160 THE FIRST VERTEBRATE, 



THE FIRST VERTEBRATE, AND THE 

 BEGINNING OF REASON. 



SIR, Against your correspondent's preference for 

 vernacular terms may be set a remark by Dr. Whewell, 

 that ' the loose and infantine grasp of common language 

 cannot hold objects steadily enough for scientific 

 examination, or lift them from one stage of gene- 

 ralization to another. They must be secured by the 

 rigid mechanism of a scientific phraseology.' To say 

 that ' the first vertebrate must have been the product 

 of innumerable antecedent factors,' is, perhaps, an 

 expression more puzzling than if one merely said that 

 'its immediate progenitors' were 'a single pair;' but 

 then it has the advantage of being considerably more 

 suggestive, and a good deal more to the purpose. 

 Among these ' factors ' of a living creature parents 

 commonly find a place, two parents generally ; in some 

 cases, only one ; in some cases, not even one, if we are 

 to believe the advocates of spontaneous generation, or 

 the still popular view in regard to the Creation. To 

 the parental factors of any particular offspring must be 



