188 



WALTER KIDD, ESQ., M.D.^ P.Z.S., 



latter one is met in the same manner. Such aoknowledg 

 ment of the vast extent of the present and possible evidence 

 which remains to be nnravelled. renders it becoming for the 

 advocates of either theory to be chary of dogmatic state- 

 ments. Darwin* himself expressed this forcibly : " From 

 these considerations, from our ignorance of the geology of 

 other countries beyond the confines of Europe and the 

 United States, and from the revolution in our palteontological 

 knowledge effected by the discoveries of the last dozen 

 years, it seems to me about as rash to dogmatize on the 

 succession of organic forms throughout the world, as it would 

 be for a naturalist to land for five minutes on a barren 

 point in Australia, and then discuss the number and range of 

 its productions." As we have had such uncompromising 

 statements of late on this line of evidence from one side, 

 it is appropriate that one by Sir AA'^illiam Dawson, vdiich 

 must carry much weight, should conclude this portion of 

 the subject. He says if " It cannot be disguised that though 

 it is possible to pick out some series of animal forms, like 

 the horses already referred to. which simulate a genetic 

 order, the general testimony of paleeontology is on the whole 

 adverse to the ordinary theories of evolution, whether appHed 

 to the vegetable or to the animal kingdom " ; and. " we may 

 also conclude that the settlement in very early times of so 

 many great principles of construction, and the majestic march 

 of life along determinate paths throughout the vast lapse of 

 geological ages, and along with so many great physical 

 changes, cannot be fortuitous, but must represent a great 

 creative plan conceived in the beginning and cnrried out 

 Avitli unchanging consistency."! 



Riidvnentary characters would be more properly called 

 " vestigial " in all cases. Whatever these characters indicate 

 they are not rudimentary or elementary, but all of them 

 " speak of something that is gone." In an altogether new 

 sense we are now taught that '• our birth is but a sleep and 

 a forgetting," and this class of characters is pointed to in 

 proof Professor Drummond's slightly scornful description 

 of the human body — " museum of obsolete anatomies " — 

 belongs to tliis class of teaching. Professor Huxley admitted 

 this class of facts to be double-edged, inasnnich as it is 



* Dai-ivin and after Darwin, part I, p. 438. 

 t Modem Ideas of Eoolution, p. 146. 

 X Jhid., p. 127. 



