DEFICIENCY OF INTERMEDIATE FORMS. 



295 



found which demonstrate the common origin of the horse 

 with the didactyles and the multidactyles, we should still 

 not deem the horse a special miraculous creation, but 

 incontrovertibly deduce his true kinship with the other 

 ungulata. This pure deduction is not requisite, as the 

 progenitors of the horse are present in conspicuous re- 

 mains; and, as we have already seen, elicited in R. Owen, 

 half a century ago, the conviction of a direct metamor- 

 phosis of the tridactyle genera into the unidactyle. Our 

 acquaintance with the tridactyle horses was a lucky 

 chance; they were indigenous in those parts of Europe 

 which have been most diligently laid bare and explored 

 in behalf of Palaeontology. 



But that our museums are still destitute of the fossil 

 progenitors of man, is not more strange than the defi- 

 ciency, hitherto existing, of intermediate forms^ which, 

 for example, would conclusively decide the position of 

 the Dinotherium in the system. We will also refer again 

 to the elephants, who, with their nearest ally, the mas- 

 todon, occupy towards the other Pachydermata a position 

 elucidated by no fossils, and far more isolated than that 

 of man to the apes. We hope herewith to have shown 

 that the argument that, by peculiarities not bridged over, 

 — by upright gait, comparative hairlessness, chin, prepon- 

 derance of brain, &c., — man betrays a position absolutely 

 apart, cannot be admitted by comparative anatomy and 

 palaeontology. The demand, therefore, that the ad- 

 herents of the doctrine of Descent should produce the 

 intermediate forms which at one time necessarily existed, 

 can be made only by dilettantes to whom the province 

 of life, as a whole, has remained a sealed book. 



As we observed before, the bodily nature of man is 

 20 



