320 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT. 



of the animal or the plant from its primary egg or 

 germ is a true process of evolution a progress from 

 almost formless to more or less highly organised 

 matter, in virtue of the properties inherent in that 

 matter. 



To those who are familiar with the process of 

 development, all d priori objections to the doctrine of 

 biological evolution appear childish. Any one who 

 has watched the gradual formation of a complicated 

 animal from the protoplasmic mass, which constitutes 

 the essential element of a frog's or a hen's egg, has 

 had under his eyes sufficient evidence that a similar 

 evolution of the whole animal world from the like 

 foundation is, at any rate, possible. 



Yet another product of investigation has largely 

 contributed to the removal of the objections to the 

 doctrine of evolution current in 1859. It is the proof 

 afforded by successive discoveries that Mr. Darwin did 

 not over-estimate the imperfection of the geological 

 record. No more striking illustration of this is 

 needed than a comparison of our knowledge of the 

 mammalian fauna of the Tertiary epoch in 1859 with 

 its present condition. M. Gaudry's researches on the 

 fossils of Pikermi were published in 1868, those of 

 Messrs. Leidy, Marsh, and Cope, on the fossils of the 

 Western Territories of America, have appeared almost 

 wholly since 1870, those of M. Filhol on the phos- 

 phorites of Quercy in 1878. The general effect of 

 these investigations has been to introduce to us a 

 multitude of extinct animals, the existence of which 

 was previously hardly suspected ; just as if zoologists 



