POSITION OF PALAZONTOLOGY,. II 
mysterious, is indicated between the evolution of the 
individual and the general constitution of the animal 
world. This connection requires a scientific solution, a 
reduction to causes, and this all the more urgently be- 
cause their relations, though as yet hidden, are rendered 
more probable by a third series of phenomena, the 
conquest of which is likewise the achievement of natural 
history. We allude to the record of the primeval 
world. 
Therefore, the knowledge of paleontological facts 
also forms part of the indispensable basis of our opera- 
tions. Geology entered the right track forty years 
ago. We now know that the world was not made 
backwards, but originated by gradual formations and 
metamorphoses ; we may—-nay, we must, infer that, ata 
definite epoch of refrigeration, life appeared in a natural 
manner, that is to say, without any incomprehensible 
act of creation ; and during this slow transformation of 
the earth’s crust, we see living beings also gradually 
increasing, differentiating, and perfecting themselves. 
Yet more. As was first convincingly proved in detail 
by Agassiz, one of the most vehement antagonists of the 
theory of descent, we behold the palzontological or his- 
torical series of organisms in the same sequence as the 
phases of the development of the individual. There are 
here vast chasms yet to be filled up by future observa- 
tion, though in many points we must not altogether 
despair of success. But that the process of paleon- 
tological development is, in general, the one indicated, 
is disputed only by naturalists, who, like Barrande, 
years ago anchored themselves to inalterable convictions 
in science, as in creed, to dogmas. 
