VII " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES " 241 



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

 have seen, the amount of our knowledge respect- 

 ing the mammalia of the Tertiary epoch is 

 increased fifty-fold, and in some directions even 

 approaches completeness ? 



Simply this, that, if the doctrine of evolution 

 had not existed, palaeontologists must have in- 

 vented 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. 



Among the fossils of Pikermi, Gaudry found 

 the successive stages by which the ancient civets 

 passed into the more modern hyaenas ; through 

 the Tertiary deposits of Western America, Marsh 

 tracked the successive forms by which the ancient 

 stock of the horse has passed into its present 

 form ; and innumerable less complete indications of 

 the mode of evolution of other groups of the 

 higher mammalia have been obtained. In the 

 remarkable memoir on the phosphorites of 

 Quercy, to which I have referred, M. Filhol de- 

 scribes no fewer than seventeen varieties of the 

 genus Cynodictis, which fill up all the interval 

 between the viverine animals and the bear-like 

 dog Amphicyon ; nor do I know any solid ground 

 of objection to the supposition that, in this 

 Cynodictis-Amphicyon group, we have the stock 

 whence all the Viveridse, Felidae, Hyaenidae, 

 Canidae, and perhaps the Procyonidoe and Ursidae, 



