OBJECTIONS TO THE DARWINIAN THEORY 155 



tain parts of animals can, in the ordinary course of 

 events, have any reasonable chance of being preserved 

 as fossils ; and furthermore, that only certain de- 

 posits, such as mud, are capable of preserving these 

 remains uninjured. " The crust of the earth," to 

 quote from Darwin, "with its embedded remains, 

 must not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but 

 as a poor collection made at hazard and at rare 

 intervals." We also, however, saw that in spite of 

 this imperfection of the record, several series of 

 fossil links have been obtained ; notably, in the 

 cases of the horse and Paludina ; and that the 

 Archceopteryx is one of the most important links 

 known. 



A further consideration in regard to fossil links 

 is that of the unlikeness between the dominant 

 forms of one age and those of succeeding ones : for 

 instance, between the reptiles of the secondary 

 period and the later forms. Undoubtedly, if we 

 regard these alone, there are great and apparently 

 abrupt gaps ; but we must not suppose fossil forms 

 all to stand in the direct line of ancestry of living 

 animals. 



As it has been with animals, so it has been with men. 

 As we find in human history the Egyptian, Greek, 

 and Roman nations, each in turn dominant, so also 

 do we note that they are not lineal descendants one 

 of another, but collateral branches of the great 

 human family or tree, which in succession attained 

 maturity and gained dominion. Dominant races of 

 animals in successive geological ages have often died 

 out and left no descendants — great reptiles such as 



