ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 155 



brings to light, as it assuredly will do, the laws of that 

 process, we shall be able to reason from the facts with 

 which the geological record furnishes us to those which 

 have hitherto remained, and many of which, perhaps, 

 may for ever remain, hidden. The same method of 

 reasoning which enables us, when furnished with a frag- 

 ment of an extinct animal, to prophesy the character 

 which the whole organism exhibited, will, sooner or 

 later, enable us, when we know a few of the later terms 

 of a genealogical series, to predict the nature of the 

 earlier terms. 



In no very distant future, the method of Zadig, ap- 

 plied to a greater body of facts than the present genera- 

 tion is fortunate enough to handle, will enable the biolo- 

 gist to reconstruct the scheme of life from its beginning, 

 and to speak as confidently of the character of long ex- 

 tinct 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. 



