THE INTEGUMENTS AND CLOTHING OF MAMMALIA. 161 



version of a monad into Man should be complete ; a visionary theory, based 

 upon a shadowy assumption. " I have no doubt," he observes, " that all the 

 Mammalia have originally sprung from the ocean, and that the latter is the true 

 cradle of the whole animal kingdom. In fact, we see that the least perfect 

 animals are not only the most numerous, but that they either live solely 

 in the water, or in those very moist places where Nature has performed, and 

 continues to perform, under favourable circumstances, her direct or spon- 

 taneous generations ; and there, in the first place, she 'gives rise to the 

 most simple animalcules, from which have proceeded all the animal crea- 

 tion." (See Phi I os. ZooL, tome ii.) Time, the wizard time, is to pro- 

 duce all this. To ask for proofs of this transition, is useless ; to demand 

 the period of their occurrence, is to learn that these marvellous changes 

 took place in remote ages, to which Man cannot look back. " There is 

 good reason why we do not see these changes successively performed, 

 which have diversified the known animals, and brought them to their 

 present state. We see them only when they are finished, and not when 

 undergoing the change, and we very naturally infer that they have always 

 remained as we see them. If the average duration of the life of each 

 generation of mankind were only a second, and if a pendulum were 

 mounted, and in motion, then would each generation consider this pendulum 

 to be really at rest, having never seen it change in the course of their 

 lives ; the observations of thirty generations would not demonstrate any- 

 thing positive concerning the vibrations of this instrument. The revolu- 

 tions of myriads of ages, are as the single vibration of an immense pen- 

 dulum ; the time through which Man has occupied the globe, is scarcely 

 as thirty seconds ; we have not seen the pendulum perform half of one 

 vibration." With Lamarck, then, there is no such thing as species. Some 

 myriads of years since, a few gemmules, or embryos, of a sponge, instead of 

 attaching themselves to a stone, or rock, in the ocean, and there becoming 

 fixed, and assuming the characters of their poriferous parent, continued to 

 swim about, by means of their vibratilecilia : by degrees they advanced to 

 the shore, and, being left dry by the retiring tide, they ultimately became 

 semi-aquatic beings, of some form or other. Various were the transitions 

 through which they went. Finally, some returned to the ocean again ; and 

 their descendants, passing through a series of progressive changes, at length 

 attained the giant forms of Whales and Grampuses. Others, advancing 

 from the shore, walked inland : they tried to breathe the air, and, by dint 

 of repeated trials, effected their purpose : in some arose a desire to 

 taste their fellows ; and claws, and strong teeth, and great muscular energy, 

 were, ultimately, attained : others preferred a vegetable diet ; and plastic 

 Nature seconded their wishes : one was not contented with the herbage of 

 the ground, but took a fancy to the leaves of trees ; and, by trying to 

 obtain them, the neck became elongated ; more so in the next generation ; 



