120 SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 



completely developed as the five digits of my hand. We know, further, 

 that the general type ot mammal possesses in the leg, not only a complete 

 tibia, but a complete fibula — a complete, distinct, separable bone. More- 

 over, in the hind-foot we find, in animals in general, five distinct toes, just 

 as we do in the fore-foot. Hence it follows a differentiated animal like the 

 horse, must have proceeded by way of evolution or gradual modification 

 from a form possessing all the characteristics we find in mammals in general. 

 If that be true, it follows that if there be anywhere preserved in the series 

 of rocks a complete history of the horse, that is to say of the various stages 

 through which he has passed, those stages ought gradually to lead us back 

 to some sort of animal which possessed a radius and an ulna, and distinct 

 complete tibia and fibula, and in which there were five toes upon the fore- 

 limb, no less than upon the hind-limb. Let us turn to the facts and see how 

 they bear upon the requirements of this doctrine of evolution. 



"In the earlier Pliocene and later Miocene epoch, in deposits which be- 

 long to that age, and which occur in Germany and in Greece, in India, in 

 Britain and in France, we find animals which are like horses in all the es- 

 sential particulars which I have just described, and the general character 

 of which is so entirely like that of the horse that you may follow descrip- 

 tions given in works upon the anatomy of the horse upon the skeletons ot 

 these animals. But they differ in some imjDortant particulars. There is a 

 difference in the structure of the fore and hind limb, and that difference 

 consists in this, that the bones which are here represented by two sj)lints, 

 imperfect below, are as long as the middle metacarpal bone, and that at- 

 tached to the extremity of each is a small toe with its three joints of the 

 same general character as the middle toe, only very much smaller, and so 

 disposed that they could have had but very little functional importance, and 

 that they must have been rather of the nature of the dew-claws such as are 

 to be found in many ruminant animals. This Hipparion, or European three- 

 toed horse, in fact presents a foot similar to that which you see here repre- 

 sented, except that in the European Hipparion these smaller fingers are 

 farther back, and these lateral toes are of smaller j)i"orortional size. 



"Now let us go a step farther back to the middle and older parts of 

 which are called the Miocene formation. There you find in some parts of 

 Europe the equine animals which differ essentially from the modern horse^ 

 though they resemble the horse in the broad features of their organization. 

 They differ in the characters of their fore and hind limbs, and present im- 

 portant features of differnce in the teeth. The forms to which I now refer 

 are what constitute the genus Anchitherium. We have three complete toes ; 

 the middle toe is smaller in proportion, the inner and outer toes are larger, 

 and in fact large enough to rest upon the ground, and to have functional 

 importance — not an animal with dew-claws, but an animal with three func- 

 tional toes. And in the fore-arm you find the ulna a very distinct bone, 

 quite readily distinguishable in its whole length from the radius, but still 

 pretty closely united with it. In the hind-limb you also meet with three 



