DARWINISM IN ENGLAND. iii 



That something of this kind is felt by most of those British 

 naturaHsts who, hke myself, accept the doctrine of continuity 

 by " descent with modification," is more than I can possibly 

 affirm ; but I believe that such as have thought most deeply on 

 the subject are quite satisfied that the doctrine of Natural 

 Selection docs not of I'tse// afford an adequate explanation of the 

 phenomena that have to be accounted for. Of that genetic 

 continuity, however, every extension of palteontological know- 

 ledge affords additional evidence. A most striking example is 

 afforded by the gradual divarication of the Ruminant and 

 Pachyderm orders, and of the family subdivisions of the latter, 

 which can be now traced through the Tertiary and Quaternary 

 series. Every naturalist knows that the Anoplotherium and 

 other mammals whose fossil remains occur in the Eocene 

 Tertiaries of Paris, presented most remarkable combinations of 

 pachyderm and ruminant characters, which are completely 

 separated and specialized in Pliocene and post-Pliocene genera. 

 A few years ago a remarkable collection of mammalian fossils 

 was discovered at Pikermi in Greece ; and the study of these, 

 most carefully prosecuted by M. Gaudry, of the Jardin des 

 Plantes, has shown that they supplied such a number of 

 " missing links," that the genetic derivation of the latter more 

 specialized types from the earlier more generalized could scarcely 

 remain a matter of doubt to any naturalist not previously 

 wedded to the doctrine of special creations. On the basis of a 

 very careful examination of the whole series as completed by 

 recent American discoveries, Professor Huxley has been able 

 to construct a " Pedigree of the Horse," so complete that nothing 

 is now wanting to its entire continuity from the Eocene period 

 to the present. 



Again, the Deep-Sea researches in which it has been my 

 privilege to bear a part, have shown that a large number of 

 Cretaceous Echinoderms, Corals, Sponges, and Foraminifera, 

 as well as of Tertiary Mollusca, supposed to be extinct, survive 

 in the depth of the ocean at the present time ; these types being 

 in some cases specifically identical, whilst in others the modifica- 

 tion they have undergone is so limited as to justify their being 

 accounted representative species. This has been the result^ not 



