90 GLAUCUS ; OE, 



a theory of 'development,' wliicli would obliterate 

 all idea of species, by supposing that the more 

 compound animal forms were developments of their 

 simple ancestors. For such an hypothesis, Nature 

 gives us no evidence : but she gives us, through 

 all her domains, the most beautiful and diversified 

 proofs of an adherence to a settled order, by which 

 new combinations are continually brought out. In 

 this order, the lowest grades of being have certain 

 characters, above which they do not rise, bu.t propa- 

 gate beings as simple as themselves. Above them 

 are others which, passing through stages in their 

 infancy equal to the adult condition of those below 

 them, acquire, when at maturity, a perfection of or- 

 gans peculiarly their own. Others again rise above 

 these, and their structures become more gradually 

 compound ; till, at last, it may be said that the simpler 

 animals represent, as in a glass, the scattered organs 

 of the higher races." 



When I read such a passage as this, and 



confess, as I must, its truth, I cannot help sighing 

 over certain expressions in it, which do unintention- 



