SPECIAL CREATION OR DERIVATION? 



lusk-like creatures as the amphioxus can strictly 

 be included among fishes ; but presently here 

 too the lines begin to diverge, and we encounter 

 reptiles and birds on the one hand, and mam- 

 mals on the other, all three being related to 

 fishes through the remarkable structures of liv- 

 ing and extinct batrachia. 



Such, as stated with crude brevity, is the 

 classification of animals most in accordance with 

 our present knowledge. Now from first to last, 

 the farther we trace any one line of develop- 

 ment, the more widely we find it diverging from 

 other lines which originated in the same point. 

 The higher insects and crustaceans are not at 

 all like worms ; but the myriapoda, the lower 

 crustaceans, and the caterpillars of higher in- 

 sects, are like worms. Viewed at the upper ends 

 of the scale, the mollusks are widely different 

 from the vertebrates ; viewed at the lower end, 

 the difference almost vanishes — the amphioxus 

 being closely similar in structure to the asci- 

 dians, whose embryos present rudiments of a 

 vertebral column. No two animals could well 

 be more strikingly unlike than a wren and an 

 elephant ; yet the lowest known mammal, the 

 Australian duck-bill, possesses many bird-like 

 characteristics. In the man and the oak we get 

 perhaps the widest possible amount of diver- 

 gence between organisms ; yet at the bottom of 

 the animal and vegetal kingdoms we find crea- 

 391 



