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OKI GIN AL ARTICLES. 
10 : 10, 12, 16. We nowhere find in the successive deposits in 
Europe, indications of a transition from E. meridionalis to E. anti- 
quus , which could be represented by a formula between 8 : 8, 9, 12 ; 
and 10 : 10, 12, 16 : nor between the latter species and JE. primi- 
genius by a formula intermediate to 10 : 10, 12, 16; and 12 : 12, 16, 
24. The difference is so great, that the penultimate upper true 
molar (m. 2), which in E. meridionalis does not exceed nine ridges, 
attains in the Mammoth 16. And it is further to be borne in mind, 
that these numerical distinctions in the divisions of the crowns of 
the molars, are accompanied by other specific characters which are 
equally constant. 
The inferences which I draw from these facts, are not opposed to 
one of the leading propositions of Darwin’s theory. With him I 
have no faith in the opinion, that the Mammoth and other extinct 
Elephants made their appearance suddenly, after the type in which 
their fossil remains are presented to us. The most rational view 
seems to be, that they are in some shape the modified descendants 
of earlier progenitors. But if the asserted facts be correct, they 
seem clearly to indicate that the older Elephants of Europe, such as 
E. meridionalis and E. antiquus, were not the stocks from which the 
later species E. primigenius and E. Africanus sprung, and that we 
must look elsewhere for their origin. The nearest affinity, and that 
a very close one, of the European E. meridionalis is with the Mio¬ 
cene E. ( Loxod .) planifrons of India; and of E. primigenius with 
the existing Indian species. Another reflexion is equally strong in 
my mind, that the means which have been adduced to explain the 
origin of species by ‘ Natural Selection,’ or a process of variation 
from external influences, is inadequate to account for the phenomena. 
The law of Phyllotaxis, which governs the evolution of leaves around 
the axis of a plant, is nearly as constant in its manifestation, as any 
of the physical laws connected with the material world. Each in¬ 
stance, however different from another, can be shown to be a term 
of some series of continued fractions. When this is coupled with 
the geometrical law governing the evolution of form, so manifest in 
some departments of the animal kingdom, e. g. the spiral shells of 
the Mollusca, it is difficult to believe, that there is not in nature, 
a deeper seated and innate principle, to the operation of which 
4 Natural Selection ’ is merely an adjunct. The whole range of the 
Mammalia, fossil and recent, cannot furnish a species, which has 
had a wider geographical distribution, and at the same time passed 
through a longer term of time, and through more extreme changes 
of clhnatal conditions, than the Mammoth. If species are so un¬ 
stable, and so susceptible of mutation through such influences, why 
does that extinct form stand out so signally a monument of stability ? 
By his admirable researches and earnest writings, Darwin has, beyond 
all his cotemporaries, given an impulse to the philosophical investi¬ 
gation of the most backward and obscure branch of the Biological 
Sciences of his day; he has laid the foundations of a great edifice; 
