D PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



it did not, for there is not a single word respecting this charge in the 

 whole of the notes he has left. But hesides, altogether independently 

 of this silence, we have a complete proof that, so far from estimating 

 this lrypothesis as a gigantic conception, he actually placed it in the 

 rank of those frivolous pastimes of the fancy, with which truth 

 has nothing whatever in common, and we are greatly diverted 

 when they are invested with a certain grace and address, but which 

 are deprived of all their recommendations the moment we begin to 

 consider them as objects of serious contemplation. 



Most cordially do I wish that, consistently with my duty, 1 could 

 have allowed this topic to remain in the silence to which my brother 

 seemed desirous of consigning it ; but, whilst he was amongst us, in 

 life, this complete reserve had an obvious import, which in the pre- 

 sent circumstances it cannot possibly convey, since the reproach has 

 been revived, and since it is not by our silence that we should meet 

 it. The researches on fossil bones, and all the successive works 

 which in imitation of my brother's productions have had for their 

 subject, those animals whose remains are discovered buried deeply 

 beneath the surface of our earth, and which inhabited our continents 

 previously to the latest catastrophe that has displayed their remains to 

 our eyes, the whole I repeat of all the compositions just spoken of, 

 contain demonstrations of the truth, that these animals of a high anti- 

 quity, without any exception whatever, are specifically distinguishable 

 from all those now living on the earth; that the more deeply we 

 descend in the earth, the more shall we find the differences increased 

 between the ancient and the modern species ; and, in short, that the 

 number of aquatic animals compared with the terrestrial species, is 

 governed by the same law of progressive increase of mutual difference, 

 in proportion to the sum of the descent which we make from the 

 superficial strata of the earth, to the deepest of the rocks. Thus we 

 find animals of the mammalia description only in the uppermost or 

 intermediate strata, and, beneath them again, we meet with the ovi- 

 parous class. Such are the facts which result from the aggregate 

 evidence of all these works, each author recognizing them indepen- 

 dently of the rest; the whole of the conclusions, the whole of the induc- 

 tions, which are justified by right reasoning, having been deduced and 

 then expressed in a perfectly intelligible language. But even this 

 was not sufficient for those more indulgent spirits, according to whose 

 authority it was essential to infer from the whole assemblage of scien- 

 tific facts maturely considered this distinct conclusion, viz., that the 

 modern species of animals were not different in any specific character 

 from the ancient animals, that the former were mere modifications of 



