3 66 The Evolution Theory. [July, 



to undergo a retrograde evolution, in order to repair the error 

 caused by the want of foresight or precipitation of their 

 earlier days. But, like other cases of late repentance, theirs 

 seems not to have quite repaired the evils incurred ; for it 

 was after they had fully attained the golden mean that they 

 failed in the struggle, and finally became extinct. "Thus 

 the infallibility which these theories attribute to all the acts 

 of matter organising itself is gravely compromised," and 

 this attribute would appear not to reside in the trilobed tail 

 any more than according to some in the triple crown. 



In the same manner, the palaeontologist of Bohemia 

 passes in review all the parts of the Trilobites, the succes- 

 sion of their species and genera in time, the parallel between 

 them and the Cephalopods, and the relations of all this to 

 the primordial fauna generally. Everywhere he meets with 

 the same result ; namely, that the appearance of new forms 

 is sudden and unaccountable, and that there is no indication 

 of a regular progression by derivation. He closes with the 

 following somewhat satirical comparison, of which I give a 

 free translation : — " In the case of the planet Neptune, it 

 appears that the theory of astronomy was wonderfully borne 

 out by the actual facts as observed. This theory, therefore, 

 is in harmony with the reality. On the contrary, we have 

 seen that observation flatly contradicts all the indications 

 of the theories of derivation with reference to the composi- 

 tion and first phases of the primordial fauna. In truth, 

 the special study of each of the zoological elements of that 

 fauna has shown that the anticipations of the theory are in 

 complete discordance with the observed facts. These dis- 

 cordances are so complete and so marked that it almost 

 seems as if they had been contrived on purpose to contradict 

 all that these theories teach of the first appearance and 

 primitive evolution of the forms of animal life." 



This testimony is the more valuable, inasmuch as the 

 annulose animals generally, and the Trilobites in particular, 

 have recently been a favourite field for the speculations of 

 our English evolutionists. The usual argumentum ad igno- 

 rantiam deduced from the imperfection of the geological 

 record, will not avail against the facts cited by Barrande, 

 unless it could be proved that we know the Trilobites only 

 in the last stages of their decadence and that they existed 

 as long before the Primordial as this is before the Permian. 

 Even this supposition, extravagant as it appears, would by 

 no means remove all the difficulties. 



