in IS EVOLUTION STOPPED? 173 



specific forms has, on this globe at least, 

 been closed for ever. I have often been 

 amused by the smile of incredulity which 

 comes over Darwinian faces when the 

 very idea of the possibility of new 

 species being yet to come, is put before 

 them. Yet if we had been living in 

 the Pliocene Age an age, comparatively 

 speaking, very recent and of no great 

 duration we should undoubtedly have 

 seen the processes in full operation by 

 which the highest of our Mammalian 

 forms were perfected and established. 

 Nevertheless, the half-unconscious con- 

 viction may be true, that nothing of the 

 same kind is going on now, and that not 

 only has the creation of new germs been 

 stopped, but that procreation has also 

 been arrested in its evolutionary work. 



It is curious how well this instinctive 

 impression, which, although never ex- 

 pressly stated, is always silently assumed 



