REVIEWS—ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 401 
may be so; but I confess that it has made a very different impression upon me. 
I have been more forcibly struck with his inability to perceive when the facts 
are fatal to his argument, than with anything else in the whole work. His chapter 
on the Geological Record, in particular, appears to me to be, from beginning to 
end, a series of illogical deductions and misrepresentations of the modern results 
of Geology and Paleontology. I do not intend to argue here, one by one, the 
questions he has discussed. Such arguments end too often in special pleading ; 
and any one familiar with the subject may readily perceive where the truth lies, 
by confronting his assertions with the geological record itself. But, since the 
question at issue is chiefly to be settled by paleontological evidence, and I have 
devoted the greater part of my life to the special study of the fossils, I wish to 
record my protest against his mode of treating this part of the subject. Not 
only does Darwin never perceive when the facts are fatal to his views, but, when 
he has succeeded by an ingenious circumlocution in overleapiig the facts, he 
would have us believe that he has lessened their importance, or changed their 
meaning. He would thus have us believe that there have been periods during 
which all that had taken place during other periods were destroyed; and this 
solely to explain the absence of intermediate forms between the fossils found in 
successive deposits, for the origin of which he looks to those missing links, 
whilst every recent progress in Geology shows more and more fully how gradual 
and successive all the deposits have been which form the crust of our earth.—He 
would have us believe that entire faunz have disappeared before those were pre- 
served, the remains of which are found in the lowest fossiliferous strata; when 
we find everywhere non-fossiliferous strata below those that contain the oldest 
fossils now known. It is true, he explains their absence by the supposition that 
they were too delicate to be preserved ; but any animals from which Crinoids, 
Brachiopods, Cephalopods, and Trilobites could arise, must have been similar 
enough to them to have left, at least, traces of their presence in the lowest non- 
fossiliferous rocks, had they ever existed at all—-He would have us believe that 
the oldest organisms that existed were simple cells, or something like the lowest 
living beings now in existence : when such highly organized,animals as Trilobites 
and Orthoceratites are amongst the oldest known.—He would have us believe 
that these lowest first-born became extinct, in consequence of the gradual ad- 
vantage some of their more favored descendants gained over the majority of 
their predecessors ; when there exist now, and have existed at all periods in past 
times, as large a proportion of more simply organized beings, as of more favored 
types; and when such types as Lingula were among the lowest Silurian fossils, 
and are alive at the present day.—He would have us believe that each new 
species originated in consequence of some slight change in those that preceded ; 
when every geological formation teems with types that did not exist before.— 
He would have us believe that animals and plants became gradually more and 
more numerous ; when most species appear in myriads of individuals, in the first 
bed in which they are found.—He would have us believe that animals disappear 
gradually ; when they are as common in the uppermost bed in which they occur, 
ag in the lowest, or any intermediate bed. Species appear suddenly and disap- 
pear suddenly in successive strata. That is the fact proclaimed by Paleontology § 
