148 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT. 



organism exhibited, will, sooner or later, enable us, 

 when we know a few of the later terms of a genea- 

 logical series, to predict the nature of the earlier 

 terms. 



In no very distant future, the method of Zadig, 

 applied to a greater body of facts than the present 

 generation is fortunate enough to handle, will enable 

 the biologist to reconstruct the scheme of life from its 

 beginning, and to speak as confidently of the character 

 of long extinct living beings, no trace of which has 

 been preserved, as Zadig did of the queen's spaniel 

 and the king's horse. Let us hope that they may be 

 better rewarded for their toil and their sagacity than 

 was the Babylonian philosopher ; for perhaps, by that 

 time, the Magi also may be reckoned among the 

 members of a forgotten Fauna, extinguished in the 

 struggle for existence against their great rival, common 

 sense. 



