13 



development of these molluscs to a pre-Siluinan period. We 

 are, therefore^ obliged to give up this hypothesis in order to 

 explain the simultaneous appearance of numerous specific or 

 generic forms of this order at very distant spots on the 

 surface of the globe about the time of the origin of the 

 second fauna 



After the facts and considerations which have gone before, 

 the disagreements shown between the zoological and chrono- 

 logical evolution could not be made to disappear, either before 

 the excuse of the lack of sufficient paleeontological evidence, or 

 before the hypothesis of a series of anteprimordial faunas, or 

 before the supposition of the total disappearance of the 

 vestiges of these faunas through the effect of the metamor- 

 phism of the rocks 



These disagreements, then, remain in science to show us 

 that the order of the cephalopods, that is^ the first order among 

 molluscs^ by its organisation, as well as by its numbers, its 

 variety, and the strength of its representatives during the 

 Silurian ages, altogether eludes the ideal combinations which 

 would tend to derive its origin and its primitive form from an 

 imaginary individual, by an indefinite succession of imper- 

 ceptible variations before the palaeozoic era. This bears 

 witness to the powerlessness of theories or self-made explana- 

 tions to reveal to us the means by which it has pleased the 

 Creator to introduce organic life upon the globe, and to pro- 

 vide for the succession and development of the types which 

 should represent them, each one in the period which has been 

 assigned to it by eternal wisdom. ^^ 



So far Barrande. 



M. Gaudry, one of the ablest of living palaeontologists^ 

 an evolutionist, concludes his statement of the case with the 

 following important sentences : — " But, to be strictly correct, 

 it must be added that, in the actual state of our knowledge, 

 we are scarcely permitted to pierce the mystery which enve- 

 opes the primal development of the gi-eat classes of animal 

 life. No one knows the manner in which the first creature o£ 

 the foraminifera, the polyps, the jelly-fishes, the urchins, the 

 brachiopods, the bivalves, the ostracods, the univalves, the 

 trilobites, the decapods, the myriapods, the insects, the spiders, 

 the fish, the reptiles, &c., appeared. The most ancient fossils 

 have not yet furnished us with positive proof of the passage 

 of animals from one class to another class.^' t 



I sum up by claiming, on the issue of evolution by the 



* Syst. Sihmen de la Bokhne, ii., p. 157. t Gaudn^, p. 292. 



