FISHES. 
WONDERS OF CREATION AS SHOWN IN DESIGN, STRUCTURE AND ADAPTATION. 
NOWEEDGE respecting tlie primary orders of life which 
abounded in the seas is largely speculative and made 
up of deductions drawn from analogy, and though 
the progressive steps in creation are visibly marked 
they are not so plainly consecutive, or perfectly ad- 
justed in arrangement. Enough is known, however, 
to justify us in the classification we have adopted. 
The lowest orders are therefore denominated the 
invertebrates , or creatures in which the back-bone is 
wanting, because they are simple in form and least 
variable in structure. Nor is abundant evidence 
wanting in proof of the claim that the primitive crea¬ 
tures of the most ancient seas were invertebrates. 
Much of the proof in support of this theory has 
already been offered in the opening pages of this work, treating briefly the 
subject of the earth’s development, hence we do not need to pursue it further 
now. From the invertebrate to the vertebrate is not so long a step as the casual 
reader might suppose, for in all creatures save those which belong to the very 
subsoil of animal life—where the vegetable fades into the animal—the back¬ 
bone exists in a rudimentary form, and must necessarily develop with the 
progression of species. All these links are most distinct, and the chain 
connecting the highest with the lowest is complete, save that single, strand 
which is wanting to bind man with the next descending order, which still 
remains undiscoverable, if, indeed, it ever did or can exist. Man alone seems 
to unite in nature with the Deity, and remains so far exalted above all other 
animal kind as to be separated by immeasurable space from all affinities, save 
alone the spiritual, to which his mind is ever an aspirant. 
If our surprise has already been excited by the wonderful forms and adap¬ 
tations of species described, how much greater must be our astonishment at the 
wisdom of the Creator as displayed in the more complex creatures and their 
marvellous endowments, which must now engage our attention, as we step 
into the field among animals of greater sensitiveness and improved organiza¬ 
tion. Those animals which we have considered were adapted to a water habi¬ 
tation, but the comparative simplicity of their structure will appear when we 
come to contrast them with fishes, which exhibit the omniscience of God in a 
more surprising manner than any other creatures excepting man. 
( 57 ) 
