620 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



Moreover, we firmly believe that the exceedingly 

 imperfect and fragmentary palaeontological record may 

 be much more intelligibly read in accordance with our 

 views than with those which are at the present time 

 most commonly accepted. The task itself, however, 

 we must leave to other and more competent persons. 

 We will merely state that the continued existence of 

 low types throughout the geologic strata from the Silu- 

 rian system upwards, and, amongst higher types, the 

 constant admixture of previously known forms with 

 others altogether new, will be found quite consistent 

 with the notion of a continual surging up through all 

 geologic time of freshly-evolved, lower forms of life 

 representatives of which, as they become more and 

 more highly organized, mix, in successive epochs, with 

 those of their predecessors which still remain. Thus 

 there would always be a continual striving onwards 

 of old and new alike, towards those highest goals 

 which the direction of development and the sum- 

 total of surrounding conditions at the time rendered 

 possible. 



These considerations would, moreover, lead us to 

 expect that, whilst more or less similarity would be 

 likely to exist between the lower forms of life which 

 have existed at different periods of the Earth's history, 

 more and more divergence might be encountered 

 amongst much higher aquatic or aerial types whose 

 ancestors may haVe lived through long geologic ages. 

 Amongst such forms, considerable diversity may be 



