132 SPECIES. 



There result from all this two sorts of ideas in palaeontology, 

 the one positive, the other negative : it is true, however, that 

 the latter diminish continually the profit we obtain from the 

 former, and it is important to remember that this negative 

 evidence is the only basis upon which rests the hypothesis that 

 man is so new to our globe as some imagine. Every moment 

 we may expect to see the interior of the earth prove the con- 

 trary. Instead of discoveries following one another, and being 

 linked together as in other sciences, forming a whole which 

 hangs together by itself, palaeontology goes on from hand to 

 mouth, as it were, at the caprice of whatever may happen, 

 without knowing the wonder which is about to be revealed, 

 perhaps at a few steps from a path which millions of men have 

 passed by. 



It is very true that the human bones which have hitherto 

 been found in the ground in caverns seem to proceed from a 

 form but slightly different from our own ; but all this is very 

 recent, relatively to this considerable time of which we have 

 before spoken. Who can say but that we may find very soon 

 a skull which must be classed, whether one will or not, be- 

 tween the anthropomorphous apes and man ? 



fitienne Geoffroy, led by the logical nature of his ideas, 

 naturally admitted this intermediary form, anterior to our 

 own ; but seeing the mammalia of the last geological ages 

 generally larger than those which are contemporary with our- 

 selves, he concluded besides that our immediate ancestors were 

 giants, and that we have degenerated, like the descendants of 

 the bears and hyenas found in caverns.* Nothing has ap- 



* Comptes Rendus, vol. iv, p. 58. Perhaps the only logical deduction which 

 we can really draw from the greater size of these animals, is the greater ex- 

 tent of the continents which they inhabited. The belief in the gigantic 

 dimensions of the fossil fauna and flora, is also a remains of the marvels 

 which the first inquirers into science involuntarily reported. In examining 

 matters nearer and more impartially, we see that certain zoological groups 

 have been, in fact, formerly represented by larger species than at the present 

 day ; but until we arrive at some new discovery, we have the right to think 

 that the other groups of animals, on the contrary, have a class of larger 

 representatives than in former times ; like the quadrumana, the cetacea, in- 

 sects, cephalopods, acephalous mollusks, etc. But this pretended decay is 

 especially false as regards plants ; if we find in the ground some large ferns, 

 or enormous grasses, we must subtract a good deal from those so-called ante- 

 diluvian forests, which many have not hesitated to bring forward in support 



