124 ORGANIC EVOLVTION CONSIDERED 



of lost record in the sense that no rocks were being 

 formed or that they were being made in places that 

 we have never discovered. The rocks that ought to 

 contain remains of these highest classes are present 

 and contain abundance of the fossils of the lower 

 vertebrates. I regard their absence, under the cir- 

 cumstances, as strong evidence that Mammals and 

 Birds did not exist in the Paleozoic and that Eeptiles 

 were comparatively few. 



The fact that evolution must assume that the his- 

 tory of the origin of every class and order has been 

 lost, that the same has occurred in the case of nearly 

 all species, — the fact that a record through practi- 

 cally infinite time must, if the theory is true, have 

 existed, but that nearly all of it has been lost, leaves, 

 so far as paleontology is concerned, but a narrow 

 foundation on which to build the theory. As Profes- 

 sor Huxley admits, the known facts of paleontology 

 with regard to Invertebrates and the lower Verte- 

 brates negative the idea of evolution by progressive 

 development, "within the limits of the period rep- 

 resented by the fossiliferous rocks." 



