162 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



being the result of the modification of any other form of 

 living matter or arising by natural agencies but being 

 produced, as such, by a supernatural creative act. 



The other, the so-called " transmutation " hypothesis, 

 considers that all existing species are the result of the 

 modification of pre-existing species, and those of their 

 predecessors, by agencies similar to those which at the 

 present day produce varieties and races, and therefore in 

 an altogether natural way ; and it is a probable, though 

 not a necessary consequence of this hypothesis, that all 

 living beings have arisen from a single stock. With 

 respect to the origin of this primitive stock, or stocks, the 

 doctrine of the origin of species is obviously not necessarily 

 concerned. The transmutation hypothesis, for example, 

 is perfectly consistent either with the conception of a special 

 creation of the primitive germ, or with the supposition 

 of its having arisen, as a modification of inorganic matter, 

 by natural causes. 



The doctrine of special creation owes its existence very 

 largely to the supposed necessity of making science accord 

 with the Hebrew cosmogony ; but it is curious to observe 

 that, as the doctrine is at present maintained by men of 

 science, it is as hopelessly inconsistent with the Hebrew 

 view as any other hypothesis. 



If there be any result which has come more clearly out 

 of geological investigation than another, it is, that the 

 vast series of extinct animals and plants is not divisible, 

 as it was once supposed to be, into distinct groups, separated 

 by sharply-marked boundaries. There are no great 

 gulfs between epochs and formations no successive 

 periods marked by the appearance of plants, of water 

 animals, and of land animals, en masse. Every year adds 

 to the list of links between what the older geologists 

 supposed to be widely separated epochs : witness the crags 

 linking the drift with older tertiaries ; the Maestricht 

 beds linking the tertiaries with the chalk ; the St. Cassian 

 beds exhibiting an abundant fauna of mixed mesozoic and 

 palaeozoic types, in rocks of an epoch once supposed to 

 be eminently poor in life ; witness, lastly, the incessant 

 disputes as to whether a given stratum shall be reckoned 

 devonian or carboniferous, Silurian or devonian, cambrian 

 or Silurian. 



This truth is further illustrated in a most interesting 

 manner by the iinpurlial and highly competent testimony 



