ix ABSENCE OF DIRECT PROOF 129 



of the race. Those who object to the new view complain 

 sometimes of the frequency with which its advocates take 

 refuge, as they call it, in the " imperfection of the geological 

 record." I think, on the contrary, the difficulty is always to 

 allow sufficiently for this imperfection. When we contrast 

 the present knowledge of palaeontology with what it was fifty 

 or even ten years ago when we see by what mere accident 

 as it were, a railway driven through a new country, a quarry 

 worked for commercial purposes, a city newly fortified, so many 

 of the most important discoveries of extinct animals have been 

 made we must be convinced that all arguments drawn from 

 the absence of the required links are utterly valueless. The 

 study of palaeontology is as yet in its merest infancy, the 

 wonder is that it has already furnished so much, not so little, 

 corroboration of the doctrine of transmutation of species. 



Direct proof is, then, equally absent from both theories. 

 For the old view it may be said that it has been held for a 

 very long time by persons whose knowledge of the facts of 

 nature which bear upon it was extremely limited. On the 

 other hand, the new view is continually receiving more 

 support as that knowledge increases, and furnishes a key to a 

 vast number of otherwise inexplicable facts in every branch of 

 natural history, in geological and geographical distribution, 

 in the habits of animals, in their development and growth, 

 and especially in their structure. I will take one instance 

 from the last named the anatomy of the whale. How is it 

 possible, upon any other supposition than that it is the 

 descendant of somd land animal, with completely developed 

 limbs and teeth, which has become gradually modified to suit 

 an aquatic mode of existence, to explain the presence of the 

 numerous rudimentary, and to their present possessors 

 absolutely useless, structures found in its body. Amongst 

 others, a complete set of teeth, existing only in embryonic life, 

 entirely disappearing even before birth, and rudimentary hind 

 legs, with their various bones, joints, and muscles, of which 

 no trace is seen externally. It may be asserted that the 

 whale was originally created so, as it was asserted, and long 

 maintained, that fossil shells and bones were originally 

 created as such in the rocks in which they are found. It 



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