167 



the difference in the flora and fauna of the conter- 

 minous highlands ! In the meantime, however, our 

 belief in progressive ascension must rest mainly on 

 the order that palaeontology has discovered in the 

 past, and on the facts of variation that physiology 

 admits in the existing. And it is further confirmed 

 by the inference, that as extinctions and creations 

 were ever coincident in the past, so the extinction of 

 species that has taken place within the last few cen- 

 turies must be followed iu time by the introduction 

 of others. In fine, unless we believe that the scheme 

 of Life has culminated in the present orders, and that 

 further progression is impossible — and thus were to 

 ignore aU the teachings of the past and experiences 

 of the present — ^there is no alternative but to admit 

 that as the evolution of vitality has ever been upward 

 and onward, so it will continue to be onward and up- 

 ward stUl. 



As concerns man, this progression is sufficiently 

 obvious from the fact that the lower varieties of his 

 race axe gradually disappearing before the advance of 

 the higher, and the higher as gradually assuming 

 more exalted positions, physically, intellectually, and 

 morally. All that we learn from the history of the 

 old world confirms the aggressive ascension of the 

 higher and advancing nationalities, all our experience 

 of the present points to the extinction of the inferior 



