0 



THE HORSE 



with modification we may conclude that the existence 

 of organs in a rudimentary, imperfect, or useless con- 

 dition, or quite aborted, far from presenting a strange 

 difficulty, as they assuredly do on the old doctrine of 

 creation, might even have been anticipated in accord- 

 ance with the views here explained.' 



The rudimentary parts met with in the structure of 

 the horse will be described fully in the last two chap- 

 ters of this work, which treat of the anatomical charac- 

 ters of the animal. 



(2) It is, however, to the ancestral history, as dis- 

 closed by paleontology, or the study of fossil remains, 

 that we must look for the more direct evidence of the 

 truth of the theory ; and we are in a better position to 

 do this in the case of the horse than in that perhaps of 

 any other animal, as it is one of the few whose history 

 can be traced through a tolerably complete chain of 

 links as far back as the earliest Tertiary age. 1 We 

 must, however, not carry away the idea that the record 

 is yet perfect. Before the commencement of the Eocene 

 period it is wrapped in what appears at present im- 

 penetrable darkness and mystery. 



Throughout the vast Tertiary period, fragments here 



1 The latest of the three great periods into which geologists 

 divide the age of the earth is called Tertiary or Cainozoic. It is 

 subdivided into Eocene, Miocene, Hiocene, and Pleistocene, the last 

 being that which immediately preceded the one in which we are now 

 living. 



