HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 9 



now living in Europe; in other cases they were 

 unlike animals living anywhere on the earth at 

 the present time. Some, such as the elephant, 

 rhinoceros, and opossum were no longer European ; 

 others, such as the mammoth, were animals which at 

 the present time are extinct. Attention was thus 

 directed to this subject, and inquiry in other direc- 

 tions stimulated. In the older rocks other fossil 

 remains still more unlike existing forms were dis- 

 covered. 



Cuvier has exercised the greatest influence on 

 the study of zoology down to the time of Darwin. 

 He was the founder of Comparative Anatomy, and 

 penetrated into the subject much more deeply than 

 Linnaeus, his object being not merely to systematise 

 but to study the animals themselves. 



The real nature of fossils was known to Aristotle, 

 but the knowledge was forgotten and lost. The 

 current doctrine of the Middle Ages, and even so late 

 as the eighteenth century, was that they were freaks 

 of Nature, and they were regarded as unsuccessful 

 creative attempts or models into which life had never 

 been breathed. Cuvier overthrew all this finally, 

 and proved that they were the remains of animals 

 formerly dwelling on earth, and of different kinds or 

 species to those now living. He, moreover, showed 

 that the farther back we go in time, the more 

 do they differ from recent animals. This was a 

 tremendous step forwards, yet he stopped short, and 

 held back on the brink of a great and comprehensive 

 theory. He was struck with the differences rather than 

 the resemblances among animals, and strenuously 



