DARWIN 115 



living animals of America. God might remain at 

 the groundwork of things. He had launched 

 matter into space, and impressed natural laws on 

 it. But these sufficed for the further work. They 

 created America. They developed the mammal 

 into the sloth and the armadillo in the days of 

 the megatherium and the glyptodon. They main- 

 tained these types in the country, in a straight 

 line of development ; the progressive principle of 

 life bringing about the extinction of certain forms, 

 and transforming others by a more fitting adapta- 

 tion to their environment. 



Darwin always looked back on this first conflict 

 of his ideas in presence of the dead shells and 

 bones of the ancient pampas animals as an hour 

 of awakening. It was the birth of his humanity in 

 the higher sense. It is of interest to us because it 

 coincides exactly with the date of Haeckel's birth 

 in the ordinary sense. 



In Darwin's fine account of his voyage, which is 

 mostly arranged in the form of a diary, we find a 

 passage written on the east coast of Patagonia on 

 January 9, 1834, and the next on April 13th. In 

 the meantime the ship had made a short zigzag 

 course, which is spoken of in another connection. 

 But the interval between the two dates is taken 

 up with a passage on these gigantic animals, the 

 reasons for their extinction and the striking fact 

 of their bodily resemblance to the living animals of 

 Sout^ America. *^ This remarkable resemblance/' 

 we read, " between the dead and the living animals 

 of one and the same continent will yet, I doubt 



