72 Is Man a Finality of Organic Evolution? 
tween that humble lingula and the majestic mien of man? Such is the ex- 
haustless fertility of God’s conception. | 
We place ourselves, then, upon the threshold of animal existence, and in- 
quire what course creative power will pursue. Shall we witness a series of 
experiments for the slow perfection of «a plan — models and methods tried and 
abandoned — detached essays, having no intelligent connection with an ulti- 
mate or central scheme? With a finite intelligence such experiments would 
have been unavoidable. But Nature has served no apprenticeship; the end 
has been contemplated from the beginning. There are two things which strike 
the attention of every one who studies the history of the ancient populations 
of our globe. First, their forms and features; their habits and the details of 
their living are often in wide contrast with anything we behold in the present 
day. Secondly, while so peculiar in their details, their fundamental features 
are identical with those of existing animals, so that we call them by the same 
generic titles — corals, shells, crustaceans, etc. — and if we. scan the long line 
of beings from the Laurentian to the present, we shall find nothing which may 
not be embraced under the most general designations which we apply to exist- 
ing animals. 
Now which of the two features of the fossil world is the most instructive? 
Theis- wild and extravagant forms astonish us and attract the curiosity of the 
marvel-loving public. Their identity of fundamental plan impresses us with 
awe and reverence, and breathes thoug!its of a world-embracing scope of intel- 
ligence. The first converts the anima! creation into a vast menagerie for the 
curious to wonder at. The latter shows it to be a lesson of wisdom traced by 
the finger of the Omniscient himself. 
Let us see what is the nature of this identity of plan which runs through all 
existence and all times. It is a wonderful fact in nature. From the epoch of 
the St. John molluscs and the Potsdam trilobites; through all the dreary ages 
of the earth’s preparations for man, but four fundamental types of animal 
structure have ever existed. All the varied forms of extinct monsters have 
been constructed upon one or the other of these four fundamental plans. 
Throughout the wide range of existing beings inhabiting the deep sea, popu- 
lating the air, swarming the land and the forest and the jungle — countless 
equally in the number of individuals and in the number of distinguishable 
species — we discover but the same four fundamental plans of structure which 
we find exemplified in the creation of the ancient world. What are the zoé- 
logical characters of these four fundamental forms may be learned from any 
elementary work on the science. It is the magnificent generalization — for 
which we are indebted to the genius of George Cuvier — that I wish to im- 
press. Suffice it to say that all animalsjare either vertebrated — possessed of a 
backbone; articulated — with an external horny crust, composed of rings, like 
insects, lobsters and worms; molluscons— with soft bodies like slugs, very 
often covered with a shell, like snails and oysters; or radiated — with bodies 
composed of parts somewhat symmetrically arranged on all sides with refer- 
ence to the center, like the starfish and the corals. I have named the most 
striking character which distinguishes each of these great branches of the 
animal kingdom. Three of these fundamental plans are called into requisition 
in the constitution of the very first population of our globe. The coral was a 
radiate; the lingula was mollusc; the trilobite was an articulate. The fourth 
plan was drawn upon before the close of the first great period of animal his- 
tory and was realized in the form of a fish. In the very first chapter of the 
book of Nature there we read the announcement of a programme which is still 
in process of execution. The type of the primeval coral has sprouted into the 
tea-nettle and the star-fish; the type of the lingula has expanded into the 
snail, the clam and the cuttle-fish; the type of the trilobite has varied into 
the worm below and the insect above; while the vertebrate type, beginning 
