388 GENERAL SUMMARY TO 



wish causes him to reject the most plausible support if he has reason to suspect that it 

 is vitiated by error. Those to whom I refer as having studied this question, believing the 

 evidence offered in favour of ' spontaneous generation ' to be thus vitiated, cannot accept 

 it. They know full well that the chemist now prepares from inorganic matter a vast 

 array of substances which were some time ago regarded as the sole products of vitality. 

 They are intimately acquainted with the structural power of matter as evinced in the 

 phenomena of crystallisation. They can justify scientifically their belief in potency, 

 under proper conditions, to produce organisms ; but in reply to your question they will 

 frankly admit their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can 

 be developed save from demonstrable antecedent life." Further on he adds, " In fact 

 the whole process of evolution is the manifestation of a Power absolutely inscrutable to 

 the intellect of man." 



Again, as mentioned by Gaudry, 1 d'Omalius d'Halloy wrote, at the end of his life, 

 " I have difficulty in believing that the Almighty Being, whom I consider the author of 

 Nature, should have at different epochs destroyed all living beings in order to enjoy the 

 pleasure of re-creating new ones, which, on the same general plans, presented successive 

 differences tending to culminate in the present living forms." 2 This language, adds 

 Gaudry, seems to him to be that of common sense, and would be so likewise, I think, to 

 every sensible thinker. 



It is probable that at least a large proportion, if not all, of so-termed species may be 

 nothing more than modification of shapes by descent of a limited number of primordial 

 types ; but it is very difficult in the present state of our information to show the 

 passages between the genera among the Brachiopoda, as well as among other groups of 

 animals, which the theory of evolution absolutely requires. 



In 1873 the late Sir Wyville Thompson said, "I do not think I am speaking too 

 strongly when I say that there is now scarcely a single competent general naturalist who 

 is not prepared to accept some form of the doctrine of evolution." 3 In this statement 

 I willingly concur. 



For argument sake, let us take my Tables of Genera 4 as a starting-point, and it will be 

 seen that out of 139 genera therein provisionally recorded some 106 made their first 

 appearance during the Palaeozoic period, 34 genera occur in the Mesozoic, 21 in the 

 Cainozoic and Recent periods. Out of these 139 genera 5 only of the Primary or 

 Palaeozoic, as far as we have ascertained, have continued to be represented during nearly 

 the whole geological sequence, namely, Lingula, Discina, Crania, Waldheimia, and 

 Rliynchonetta. 



1 " Les Enchainements du Monde Animal dans les Temps geologiques ; Fossiles Primaires," p. 291, 

 1883 ; and ' Geol. Mag.,' new series, decade iii, vol. i, p. 34, 1884. 



2 D'Omalius d'Halloy, " Sur le transformisme " (' Bull, de l'Acad. Royale de Bruxelles,' 2nd ser., vol. 

 xxxvi, No. 12, Dec, 1873. 



3 ' The Depths of the Sea,' p. 9, 1873. * See Tables, pp. 351, 353—357. 



