STATE OF DEVELOPMENT COMPARED 385 



the organisation of each being more specialised and perfect, 

 and in this sense higher; not but that it may leave many 

 creatures with simple and unimproved structures fitted for 

 simple conditions of life, and in some cases will even de- 

 grade or simplify the organisation, yet leaving such degraded 

 beings better fitted for their new walks of life. In another 

 and more general manner, new species become superior to 

 their predecessors; for they have to beat in the struggle for 

 life all the older forms, with which they come into close 

 competition. We may therefore conclude that if under a 

 nearly similar climate the eocene inhabitants of the world 

 could be put into competition with the existing inhabitants, 

 the former would be beaten and exterminated by the latter, 

 as would the secondary by the eocene, and the palaeozoic by 

 the secondary forms. So that by this fundamental test of 

 victory in the battle for life, as well as by the standard of 

 the specialisation of organs, modern forms ought, on the 

 theory of natural selection, to stand higher than ancient 

 forms. Is this the case? A large majority of palaeon- 

 tologists would answer in the affirmative; and it seems 

 that this answer must be admitted as true, though difficult 

 of proof. 



It is no valid objection to this conclusion, that certain 

 Brachiopods have been but slightly modified from an ex- 

 tremely remote geological epoch; and that certain land and 

 fresh-water shells have remained nearly the same, from the 

 time when, as far as is known, they first appeared. It is not 

 an insuperable difficulty that Foraminifera have not, as in- 

 sisted on by Dr. Carpenter, progressed in organisation since 

 even the I.aurentian epoch ; for some organisms would have 

 to remain fitted for simple conditions of life, and what could 

 be better fitted for this end than these lowly organised Pro- 

 tozoa? Such objections as the above would be fatal to my 

 view, if it included advance in organisation as a necessary 

 contingent. They would likewise be fatal, if the above Fora- 

 minifera, for instance, could be proved to have first come 

 into existence during the Laurentian epoch, or the above 

 Brachiopods during the Cambrian formation ; for in this 

 case, there would not have been time sufficient for the de- 

 velopment of these organisms up to the standard which they 



M— HC XI 



