2IO LA MARC a; HIS LIFE AND WORK 



sible to nature, the number of contrary probabilities 

 is so enormous that, even philosophically, we can 

 scarcely doubt it ; for if any species has been pro- 

 duced by the modification of another, if the species 

 of ass has been derived from that of the horse, this 

 could have been done only successively and by gradual 

 steps : there would have been between the horse and 

 ass a great number of intermediate animals, the first 

 of which would gradually differ from the nature of 

 the horse, and the last would gradually approach that 

 of the ass ; and why do we not see to-day the repre- 

 sentatives, the descendants of those intermediate 

 species? Why are only the two extremes living?" 

 (tome iv., p. 390). /" If we once admit that the ass 

 belongs to the horse family, and that it only differs 

 from it because it has been modified {d(fge'n^r^), we 

 may likewise say that the monkey is of the same 

 family as man, that it is a modified man, that man 

 and the monkey have had a common origin like the 

 horse and ass, that each family has had but a single 

 source, and even that all the animals have come from 

 a single animal, which in the succession of ages has 

 produced, while perfecting and modifying itself, all 

 the races of other animals " (tome iv., p. 382). " If it 

 were known that in the animals there had been, I do 

 not say several species, but a single one which had 

 been produced by modification from another species ; 

 if it were true that the ass is only a modified horse, 

 there would be no limit to the power of nature, and we 

 would not be wrong in supposing that from a single 

 being she has known how to derive, with time, all the 

 other organized beings " {ibid., p. 382). 



The next sentence, however, translated, reads as 

 follows : 



" But no. It is certain from revelation that all ani- 

 mals have alike been favored with the grace of an act 



