T/IK /: \!>i>i;r 471 



lode of discovery once struck, those Petrified f 

 in wjiich lift* was at one tin: . increased to multitude- 



and demanded classification. They were i^n-nped in 

 genera, species, and varieties, according to the degree of 

 .-iniilarity subsisting between them. Thus confusion was 

 avoided, each object beinr found in the pigeon-hole 

 appropriated to it and to its fellows of similar morphological 

 or physiological character. The general fact soon became 

 evident that none but the simplest forms of life lie . 

 down: that, as we climb higher among the superimposed 

 strata, more perfect forms appear. The change, hov 

 from form to form was not continuous, but by steps some 

 small, some great. "A section," says Mr. Iluxl. 

 hundred feet thick will exhibit at different heights a 

 dozen species of Ammonite, none of which passes beyond 

 .articular zone of lim.-t..ue. or clay, into the zone 

 below it, or into that above it." In the presence of such 

 facts it was not possible to avoid the question: Have tin > 

 forms, showing, though in broken stages, and with many 

 irregularities, this unmistakable general advance, being 

 subjected to no continuous law of growth or variation;' 

 Had our education been purely scientific, or had it been 

 sutlieiently detached from influences which, however 

 ennobling in another domain, have always proved hindrances 

 and delusions when introduced as factors into the domain 

 of physics, the scientific mind never could have s\\ 

 from the search fora law of growth, or allowed itself to 

 ace, -pi the anthropomorphism which regarded each sue- 

 re stratum as a kind of mechanic's bench for the 

 manufacture of new species out of all relation to the old. 



however, by their previous education, the 

 majority of naturalists invoked a special cr 

 account for the appearance of each new group of 

 Doubtless numbers of them were clear-; 



that this was no explanation at all that, in 



.it was an attempt, by the introduction of a 



greater difli< -ulty, to account for a less. Hut, having 



nothing to offer in the way of explanation, they for the 



held their peace. " Still the thoughts of relied - 



n.-it urally and necessarily simmered n.i.nd the 



im. \ ] '- Maillet, a contemporary of Ncuh.n, IUIM 



i.rou^hi. into notice i m 1 1 u xley as one w ho 



M of the moditiability of living forms," The 



