390 



these last cannot be held to be less perfect than those with the medium 

 numbers. Further, as Barrande well shows, on the principle of survival of 

 the fittest, the species with the medium number of joints are best fitted for 

 the struggle of existence. But in that case the primordial Trilobites made a 

 great mistake in passing at once from the few to the many-segmented stage, 

 or vice versa, and omitting'the really profitable condition which lay between. 

 In subsequent times they were thus obliged to undergo a retrograde evolution, 

 in order to repair the error caused by the want of foresight or by the precipi- 

 tation 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 organizing 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 palaiontologist of Bohemia passes in review all 

 the parts of the Trilobites, the succession 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 foUowhig 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 Avith reference to the 

 composition 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 discordances 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 

 g'Miei-ally, and the Trilobites in particular, have recently been a favourite 

 field for the speculations of our English evolutionists. The usual argii- 

 we):tvm ad ifpiorantiam, 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. 



