92 MAMMALIAN DESCENT. [LECT. IV, 



on, faint yet wrestling still ; and the blessing of con- 

 tinued existence was pronounced upon them. Now,, 

 the Serpents, as it seems to me, are among the 

 worthiest of all those that had power with their antago- 

 nists ; they fought upon their stumps when their limbs 

 were almost gone, and when the roots of their limbs 

 were lost, then they still wrestled and fought. 



If life had not been a struggle with the angel of 

 death, our existing Edentata might have been left by 

 nature, as defenceless as the first human types. They 

 were, however, her dull, but dear, children ; and she 

 helped them as she did not help us and our ancestors. 

 She did not change her plans for them ; but she clothed 

 some with a thick heavy fell of hair, and others she 

 harnessed with coats of mail. 



What science wants to embody forth is the primordial 

 root-form of all the nobler creatures now existing ; all 

 those, I mean, that begin life by breathing air, all the 

 forms above the Amphibia (Frogs and Toads, Newts 

 and Salamanders). Indeed, we need the conception of 

 a still lower root-form than the Tadpole or the larval 

 Newt, one which might possibly have been the parental 

 form of all the existing Vertebrata. 



Let us imagine such a primordial form, and then we 

 can argue that the lowest existing Vertebrates, the Hag 

 and the Lamprey, are the descendants of types that have 

 had as much leisure for improvement as the forefathers 

 of the noblest kinds. All these types, during countless. 



