May, 1891. 
ANIMAL PEDIGREES. 
101 
Can we not go further than this ? Is this written testi¬ 
mony essential ? Would the facts be in any way altered 
if no documentary evidence were forthcoming ? Do we 
not agree that all animals have had pedigrees of this kind; 
and is it not worth enquiring whether we cannot reconstruct, 
unravel these pedigrees, even in cases where of necessity 
documentary evidence cannot be obtained ? 
Again, to return for a moment to the human argument. 
So far, our horizontal lines have been used to indicate suc¬ 
cessive generations, and the relation, admitted by all, has 
been that each generation has sprung from the preceding 
generation, and has, in its turn, given birth to the next 
succeeding one. 
Supposing now that we widen our boundaries, and agree 
that the intervals between successive horizontal lines shall 
indicate, not generations, but longer intervals, say centuries, 
the relations will remain unaltered. 
XIX Centurv. 
%> 
XVIII Century. 
XVII Century. 
XVI Century. 
XV Century. 
XIV Century. 
If, for example, we fix our attention on the sixteenth 
century, we find that the men of that century did not arise 
spontaneously, but were the direct descendants of those of 
the preceding or fifteenth century; furthermore, we all 
admit that from the men of the sixteenth centurv those of 
«/ 
the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries have 
all directly sprung. And what holds good with regard to 
the men of the sixteenth century applies equally well to 
the horses, the cats, the dogs, the birds, the butterflies, 
the starfishes of that time. 
Now widen the intervals still further : let them represent 
not merely centuries but thousands, tens of thousands, of 
years ; let them finally indicate the great geologic periods, 
and the argument will still hold :— 
