DARWIN AND PALEONTOLOGY 211 



diate in character between that of the formations above 

 and below. But several really good judges have re- 

 marked to me how desirable it would be that this should 

 be exemplified and worked out in some detail and with 

 some single group of beings. Now every one will 

 admit that no one in the world could do this better 

 than you with Brachiopods. The result might turn 

 out very unfavourable to the views which I hold ; if so, 

 so much the better for those who are opposed to me. 

 . . . I know it is highly probable that you may not 

 have leisure, or not care for, or dislike the subject, but 

 I trust to your kindness to forgive me for making this 

 suggestion." '■ 



I shall show that the sanguine as well as the 

 questioning prophecies of these epistles of 1860 

 and of 1861 have been fulfilled to the very letter 

 by paleontology ; but in order to place the whole 

 matter in its true perspective, and brighten rather 

 than dim the grandeur of Darvsdn's fame, let me 

 first briefly picture paleontology as it was in 

 1859 and as Darwin himself knew it even up to 

 the time of his death in 1882. 



It is true that modem, or Darwinian, paleon- 

 tology, as distinguished from the older, or Cuvie- 

 rian paleontology, dates from a decade after the 

 publication of the Origin^ or from 1868, when 

 Waagen ^ first exactly and minutely described 

 the mutations which occur in a descent or phy- 

 letic series of ammonites, and it is true that this 

 epochal work was followed by others ; so that the 



» Life and Letters, II, pp. 366, 367. 



' Waagen, Wilhelm Heinrich; "Die Formenreihe des Ammonites 

 subradlatus," Benecke's Oeagnostische Palaontologisehe Beitrage, 

 II, 1868, pp. 185-86. 



