16 THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



the present time have been ascertained which can fully 

 explain the origin of fossiliferous formations without 

 any great catastrophic cause at all. 



Neither philosophy nor theology compels us to 

 accept any such hypothesis of creation as involves, for 

 instance, that God destroyed all fishes twenty-nine times 

 (d'Orbigny) and created them anew twenty-nine times, 

 the newly created differing generally more or less from 

 the destroyed ones while some were replaced almost 

 unaltered. 



The only objection which could be raised was the 

 following : It is not necessary to assume that the 

 present forms descend from others of different appear- 

 ance, but from like or very similar forms which previously 

 existed near the differing ones, the remains of which 

 have so far not been discovered. In that case the 

 ' catastrophic ' theory would also be superfluous, and 

 despite it a so thorough transformation of the organisms 

 should not be accepted as established, since experience 

 now appears to contradict it. 



Next there should be remembered the words of 

 d'Orbigny regarding the ' complete ' divergence of the 

 earlier forms from those of to-day, which were not 

 shaken even by some examples of striking constancy 

 within very narrow limits of relationship, which have 

 continued from the oldest periods to the present. How 

 the unchangeability of living organisms is to be regarded 

 we shall consider later on. For the rest it is inexplic- 

 able how precisely those differently formed animals 

 and plants in the strata accessible to us have been 



