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PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



of flowers. Surely this is not less remarkable, al- 

 though the phenomenon is more familiar, than the 

 succession of species which we observe to have taken 

 place during the lapse of time, or the representation 

 of species well known to exist over wide areas in 

 space. 



The analogy is not greatly strained, if we suppose 

 that the original plan of development of all organic 

 nature, whatever it may have been, included succes- 

 sion and representation of species, just as the develop- 

 ment of the moth includes metamorphosis : nor is it 

 unphilosophical to suggest such an illustration as an 

 explanation, not only safe to a certain extent, but 

 even satisfactory with regard to many of the diffi- 

 culties presented by this subject. 



But there is no appearance in nature, and nothing 

 in geology, that can enable us to explain by pro- 

 gressive development the gradual derivation of new 

 types, or well-marked groups, of higher organi- 

 zation from those which preceded them. In the 

 oldest formations we find corals, star-fishes, crustacean 

 animals, and shell-fish (mollusca), together with a 

 very few fragments of small fishes. We know not ac- 

 curately how far these may have been the products 

 of a deep or a shallow sea of an ocean far distant 

 from land, or a sea whose coast-line was immediately 

 adjacent. We know not either whether this sea was 

 warmer or colder than the sea that washes our coast 

 now. But this we do know, that of all these animals, 

 each is perfect in its way, each is fully developed 

 after its kind. The trilobite had perfect vision by 

 its hundred eyes the cuttle-fish powerful and perfect 

 weapons of destruction, ample means of escape from 



