Xv 



lale 



e 



tic 

 tile 



til 



the 



the 



-ire 

 eof 

 the 



Tes- 

 ilkr 



ime 



) 



one 



^vu5 



into 



:to 

 tk 



tie 



was 



Date 

 laee 



W 



lieh 



tlii' 



tit 







ler- 

 itic 



1^ 



i 



Ch. XXXV.] 



EUDIMENTAEY ORGANS. 



/ 



273 



mig'ht be lost in forty years among tlie terrestrial tribes. 

 Now the Mammalia^ whether terrestrial or aquatic, bear so 

 small a proportion to other classes of animals^ forming less, 

 perhaps, than one thonsandth part of the whole, that if the 

 longevity of species in the different orders were equal, a vast 

 period must elapse before it would come to the turn of this 

 conspicuous class to lose one of their number. If one S23ecies 



dom 



man 



in a region of the dimensions of Europe. 



It is easy, therefore, to see, that in a small portion of such 

 an area, in countries, for example, of the size of England and 

 France, periods of nmch greater duration must elapse before 

 it would be possible to authenticate the iirst appearance of 

 one of the larger plants and animals, assuming the annual 

 birth and death of one species to be the rate of vicissitude in 

 the animate creation throughout the world. It would follow 

 from the above considerations that if Lamarck was entitled 



to plead insufficiency of time when challenged to 



case of transmutation, the a-rlvop,; 



bring 

 :es of 



forward a single case of 

 special creation were equally entitled to say that if the intro- 

 duction of new species goes on as slowly as the extinction of 

 old ones, it could not be expected that they should have wit- 

 nessed the first starting into being of a new animal or plant. 



Geoffrey St. Hilaire and Lamarck on rudimentary organs. 



The great majority of the best naturalists and geologists who 

 succeeded Lamarck were content to believe with Humboldt 

 that the origin of species was one of those mysteries which 



it was not given to natural science to penetrate. Omalius 



'Halloy, however, in his *^ Elements .._.^^ 



published in 1831, and in six subsequent edition's^ taught that 

 the species of animals now living were the descendants of 

 progenitors which have left their fossil remains in the later 

 Tertiary formations. 



him 



1867, when 





lie was m his eighty-fourtli year, by wliat facts and reasonin 

 lie had been led to entertain this view, and he told me that 

 he owed his convictions on this head to the lectures of 



II J. 



Hilaire^ 

 part of this century at Paris 



VOL. II. 



he had listened in the early 

 That great zoologist, he said. 



T 



