Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/65

Rh, faunæ and floræ in two different localities may be of extremely different ages, if the term "age" is used in its proper chronological sense. I stated that "geographical provinces, or zones, may have been as distinctly marked in the Palæozoic epoch as at present; and those seemingly sudden appearances of new genera and species, which we ascribe to new creation, may be simple results of migration."

4. The opinion that the oldest known fossils are the earliest forms of life has no solid foundation.

5. If we confine ourselves to positively ascertained facts, the total amount of change in the forms of animal and vegetable life since the existence of such forms is recorded is small. When compared with the lapse of time since the first appearance of these forms, the amount of change is wonderfully small. Moreover, in each great group of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, there are certain forms which I termed, which have remained, with but very little apparent change, from their first appearance to the present time.

7. In answer to the question "What, then, does an impartial survey of the positively ascertained truths of palæontology testify in relation to the common doctrines of progressive modification, which suppose that modification to have taken place by a necessary progress from more to less embryonic forms, from more to less generalized types, within the limits of the period represented by the fossiliferous rocks?" I reply, "It negatives these doctrines; for it either shows us no evidence of such modification, or demonstrates such modification as has occurred to have been very slight; and, as to the nature of that modification, it yields no evidence whatsoever that the earlier members of any long-continued group were more generalized in structure than the later ones."

I think that I cannot employ my last opportunity of addressing you, officially, more properly—I may say more dutifully—than in revising these old judgments with such help as further knowledge and reflection, and an extreme desire to get at the truth, may afford me.

1. With respect to the first proposition, I may remark that whatever may be the case among the physical geologists, catastrophic palæontologists are practically extinct. It is now no part of recognized geological doctrine that the species of one formation all died out and were replaced by a bran-new set in the next formation. On the contrary, it is generally, if not universally, agreed that the succession of life has been the result of a slow and gradual replacement of species by species; and that all appearances of abruptness of change are due to breaks in the series of deposits, or other changes in physical conditions. The continuity of living forms has been unbroken from the earliest times to the present day.

2, 3. The use of the word "homotaxis" instead of "synchronism" has not, so far as I know, found much favour in the eyes of geologists. I hope, therefore, that it is a love for scientific caution, and not mere personal affection for a bantling of my own, which leads me still to think that the change of phrase is of importance, and that the sooner it is made, the sooner shall we get rid of a