Il8 THE EVOLUTION OF LIVING BEINGS. 



Consequently the geological record gives no support 

 to progression either, and we are perfectly justified to 

 say that progression is a human conception and that 

 progressive evolution does not exist. 



But the geological record does show — even if we 

 take full account of its incompleteness — that man 

 appeared very late on the globe, that fishes and amphi- 

 bia preceded reptiUa and mammalia etc. 



This has to be accounted for. 



But this is no accounting for progressive evolu- 

 tion, but for successive evolution, as opposed to 

 simultaneous creation. 



Now this succession shows that the later types have 

 arisen from gametes, produced by the immediately 

 preceding tjrpes, and consequently that under the 

 conditions existing and having existed on the earth — 

 in the widest sense — no other way was possible. 



But this shows, by no means, that there is something 

 innate to living matter which necessitated this parti- 

 cular sequence ; we might very well have had an ear- 

 lier appearance, say of man, than has taken place, if 

 conditions — in the widest sense — had been different. 



This is clear, when we keep in mind that in our ex- 

 periment gardens we have it in hand, to postpone to 

 any desirable moment, the production of a new species, 

 by not executing the cross, as a result of which, that 

 species would arise, or to hasten its production by exe- 

 cuting that particular cross at once. 



So it may be, that if the cross from which man has 

 arisen, had been executed by nature earlier than it has 

 been executed, man would have appeared earUer in 



