Masterpieces of Science 



by gradation. Much light will be thrown on the 

 origin of man and his history. 



Authors of the highest eminence seem to be 

 fully satisfied with the view that each species 

 has been independently created. To my mind 

 it accords better with what we know of the laws 

 impressed on matter by the Creator, that the 

 production and extinction of the past and present 

 inhabitants of the world should have been due 

 to secondary causes, like those determining the 

 birth and death of the individual. When I view 

 all beings as not special creations, but as the 

 lineal descendants of some few beings which 

 lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian 

 system was deposited, they seem to me to be- 

 come ennobled. Judging from the past, we may 

 safely infer that not one living species will trans- 

 mit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. 

 And of the species now living very few will trans- 

 mit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity ; 

 for the manner in which all organic beings are 

 grouped, shows that the greater number of 

 species in each genus, and all the species in many 

 genera, have left no descendants, but have be- 

 come utterly extinct. We can so far take a pro- 

 phetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it 

 will be the common and widely spread species, 

 belonging to the larger and dominant groups 

 within each class, which will ultimately prevail 

 and procreate new and dominant species. As all 

 the living forms of life are the lineal descendants 

 of those which lived long before the Cambrian 

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