24 Darwinism 



with every evolutional variety, until in the long result 

 of time a form emerges so far modified from the 

 original as to take rank as a new species. Thus a 

 measureless gulf of time has been traversed before one 

 species has succeeded to another, and numberless have 

 been the intermediate varieties which have been 

 extinguished. That no intermediate forms had ap- 

 peared among the many distinct specific forms was a 

 surprise to Darwin, and he could only account for 

 their absence by showing the imperfection of the 

 geological record. As these intermediate forms must 

 have been infinitely more numerous than the perma- 

 nent forms, we think it may be held that the absence 

 of the intermediate is truly most remarkable and is 

 alone sufficient to confute Darwin's explanation of 

 how the evolutionary process works. 



In the geological strata a true fish is sometimes 

 found in the midst of molluscs and crustaceans. The 

 first fish that so appears is, in regard to its external 

 form and internal structure, as perfectly developed as 

 the later fish forms, having no correspondence with 

 any antecedent type and preceded by no half-way 

 form, prophetic of its emergence. Then we may ask 

 how were mammals developed from fish forms ? How 

 did the earliest mammalia come into being without 

 father or mother, without having their appearance on 

 the stage of organic life heralded by a series of forms 

 in the making from the fish to the mammal ? It would 

 be not less than miraculous that while finished forms 

 were yielded to geological research in large and growing 

 numbers, not a single series of intermediate forms, 

 pointing to the origin of a perfect generic type, should 

 emerge. 



In this connection we may consider for a moment 

 the Neanderthal skull — the most brutal of all known 

 human skulls — found near Dusseldorf in the valley of 



