322 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT. 



infinitude of connecting links between the living and 

 extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each succes- 

 sive period between the extinct and still older species, 

 why is not every geological formation charged with 

 such links \ Why does not every collection of fossil 

 remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and 

 mutation of the forms of life? We meet with no 

 such evidence, and this is the most obvious and 

 plausible of the many objections which may be urged 

 against my theory." * 



Nothing could have been more useful to the 

 opposition than this characteristically candid avowal, 

 twisted as it immediately was into an admission that 

 the writer's views were contradicted by the facts of 

 palaeontology. But, in fact, Mr. Darwin made no 

 such admission. What he says in effect is, not that 

 palseontological evidence is against him, but that it is 

 not distinctly in his favour ; and, without attempting 

 to attenuate the fact, he accounts for it by the 

 scantiness and the imperfection of that evidence. 



What is the state of the case now, when, as we 

 have seen, the amount of our knowledge respecting 

 the mammalia of the Tertiary epoch is increased 

 fifty-fold, and in some directions even approaches 

 completeness 1 



Simply this, that, if the doctrine of evolution had 

 not existed, palaeontologists must have invented it, so 

 irresistibly is it forced upon the mind by the study of 

 the remains of the Tertiary mammalia which have 

 been brought to light since 1859. 



1 " Origin of Species," ed. 1, p. 463. 



