IN MODERN SCIENCE. 



87 



Haeckel we take him on his own ground — that 

 of a monist — and have no special feference 

 to those many phases which the philosophy 

 of evolution assumes in the minds of other 

 naturalists, many of whom accept it only par- 

 tially or as a form of mediate creation more or 

 less reconcilable with theism. To these more 

 moderate views no reference has been made, 

 though there can be no doubt that many of 

 them are quite as assailable as the position 

 of Haeckel in point of argument. It may 

 also be observed that Haeckel's argument is 

 almost exclusively biological and confined to 

 the animal kingdom, and to the special line 

 of descent attributed to irian. The monistic 

 hypothesis becomes, as already stated, still 

 less tenable when tested by the facts of palae- 

 ontology. Hence most of the palaeontologists 

 who favor evolution appear to shrink from 

 the extreme position of Haeckel. Gaudry, 

 one of the ablest of this school, in ^his recent 

 work oil the development of the Mammalia, 

 candidly admits the multitude of facts for 

 which derivation will not account, and per- 

 ceives in the grand succession of animals in 

 time the evidence of a wise and far-reaching 

 creative plan, concluding with the words : " We 



