96 DISCRIMINATIONS CHAP. 



features of all development, which are 

 really sufficiently well known to all of us. 

 Nothing that we see, or know, nothing 

 that we can even conceive, is produced 

 at once as a finished article, ready-made 

 without any previous processes of growth. 

 All this is no theory. It is a fact. Mr. 

 Spencer laboriously counts up four or 

 five great heads of evidence upon this 

 subject, as if any one does or could dis- 

 pute it. First conies Geology, with its 

 long record of organic forms, showing, 

 despite many gaps and breaks, on the 

 whole an orderly procession from the 

 more simple to the most complex 

 structures. Secondly comes the science 

 of Classification, the whole principle of 

 which is founded on the possibility of 

 arranging animal forms according to 

 definite likenesses and affinities in struc- 

 ture. Thirdly comes the distribution 

 of species showing special likenesses 



