92 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



fossil."* We have no positive knowledge^ therefore, 

 that life existed prior to the Primordial. The sedi- 

 mentary rocks older than the Primordial were for- 

 merly, and are still called, by some naturalists, Azoic, 

 meaning that there was no life when they were 

 formed, and, for aught we know, this may have been 

 the fact. The oldest animals of the Primordial 

 must, if at all, have been evolved from forms that 

 are lost. The Lingula seems to be the oldest known 

 fossil, and it appeared in the early part of the period. 

 Dana says: "Among Mollusks there were only 

 Brachiopods for the greater part of the Primordial 

 period; but in the later division appear some species 

 of Lamellibranchs, Pteropods, Gasteropods, and 



Cephalopods."f 



If this is true, are we to assume that in this period 

 these highest classes of mollusks were evolved from 

 the Brachiopods? I presume that no evolutionist 

 would claim that this was possible. The only possi- 

 ble explanation of their existence in the Primordial is 

 to assume their existence previous to the period. 



It is a most remarkable fact that in the first geolog- 

 ical period in which undoubted fossils occur all the 

 sub-kingdoms except that of the vertebrates are well 

 represented, and that there is no evidence from fos- 

 sils that one sub-kingdom, or even that different 

 classes of the same sub-kingdom were evolved from 

 each other. The great gulfs that separate the animal 

 kingdom into sub-kingdoms and classes existed then, 

 and have continued till the present time. 



As to species, also, it is well known that when a new 

 species appears among fossils it comes as a well- 

 defined species, and that it cannot be connected by- 

 transitional forms with any previously existing spe- 

 cies. As we pass through the geological record from 

 * D. and after D., p. 163. t Text Book of Geology, p. 207. 



