THE KINSHIP OF LIFE. 7 
like new creations, was wholly unknown to him. And 
surely these considerations, these discoveries of a cen- 
tury of scientific activity, can not be ignored in forming 
our answer to the question of the origin of species. 
Some half a century after Linnzeus, another natural- 
ist, still greater than he, gave himself to the study of 
homologies, and formed a classification 
of all animals on the basis of the resem- 
blances seen in their plans of organi- 
zation. It was known to him that there had been many 
changes in the history of life, and that the forms now 
living are but a tithe of the total number of those which 
have existed. 
So the answer of Cuvier was substantially this: There 
have been many creations and destructions of life in the 
history of the earth. So far as we can see, it appears that 
there are as many species now as there were different 
forms created by the Infinite Being at the beginning of 
the present geological era. 
But it was not easy to show just when the present 
era began, and the reasons for believing in the repeated 
total extinctions and creations became less and less 
strong the more closely the evidence was examined. 
Nor was it clear why the new creations should be as 
it were merely modified duplicates of the creatures which 
had preceded them. Why should the Creator, for in- 
stance, in covering the earth with a new creation, carry 
it right on in the same lines as the old one? Why 
should he give us not merely birds, reptiles, insects, 
shells, and ferns as before, but birds, reptiles, insects, 
shells, and ferns only to be distinguished from their pre- 
decessors by the most careful study of men who have 
given their lives to such discriminations ? 
And then there were some men in Cuvier’s time who 
were not satisfied with the answer of Cuvier. Such men 
The answer of 
Cuvier. 
