COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



tures like the amoeba and protococcus, which 

 cannot be classified as either animal or vegetal, 

 because they are as much one as the other. 



Moreover, as we go back in time, we find 

 the lines of development, now so widely distant 

 from each other, continually drawing together. 

 As a general rule, extinct animals are less spe- 

 cialized than surviving animals ; and the same 

 is true of plants. The ancient animal departed 

 less widely from the general type of the class 

 or sub - kingdom to which he belonged than 

 the modern animal. The monotremata, which 

 of all mammals are the least remote from rep- 

 tiles and birds, are at the same time the oldest. 

 In the teleosts or true fishes the differential 

 characteristics of the vertebrate type are more 

 strongly pronounced than in the older selachi- 

 ans, to which order belongs the shark. Far 

 back in secondary times we find lizards strongly 

 resembling fishes, and other saurian creatures 

 which differ little from birds. Confining our 

 attention to any particular group, such as that 

 which embraces the ruminants and pachyderms, 

 we find the hipparion of the Eocene epoch less 

 specialized than either of his later kindred, the 

 horse, ass, zebra, and quagga ; while the gap 

 between such dissimilar animals as the pig and 

 the camel is to a great extent filled by transi- 

 tional forms found in various tertiary strata. 



Again, it hardly needs stating that, as we 

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