Like the Mastodons, the Dinotheria appeared suddenly. Whence did they come? from what quadrupeds did they spring? At present we do not know.... The points of difference [from other mammals] taken as a whole, and compared with the points of resemblance, are too great to enable us to point to any relationship between the Proboscideans and animals of other orders as yet known to us.
Such then are some of the still unanswered questions connected with the genesis of the Horse, "the most famous instance of geological evidence"[{260}][305] which Professor Huxley selects as proving Evolution to demonstration. It is by no means easy to understand how it could ever be supposed to merit any such description. In view of the various difficulties recited above it can hardly be thought that there is satisfactory evidence even of the modicum of Evolution for which alone are such arguments brought, namely within the limits of the Equidæ. Even were the reality of this established to the full, how would such evidence compare with that we have heard, drawn not from one corner of Organic Nature, but from a review of the great lines of its history?[306]
We find indeed that while Professor Huxley declares palæontology to be the main support of Evolution, other authorities tell us the exact contrary.
The doctrine of organic evolution [says Sir J. W. Dawson][307] is essentially biological rather than geological, and has been much more favoured by biologists than by those whose studies lead them more specially to consider the succession of animals and plants revealed by the rocks of the earth.
Similarly Professor Williamson,[308] speaking of the efforts made to obtain evidence on behalf of Evolution, says: "Not only living, but extinct animals[{261}] have been appealed to; Professor Huxley especially has, with his wonted skilfulness, made use of the latter to buttress the geological side of the structure, which is confessedly its weakest one."
More important than all,—Mr. Darwin himself fully acknowledged that the palæontological evidence is far short of what it should be:—and attempted to meet the difficulty by pleading the imperfection of the geological record:—a plea to be more fully considered presently.
We must not leave unnoticed the method of dealing with the geological record adopted by Professor Haeckel. Of this we have already seen a slight specimen,—- in the gratuitous and baseless assertion that the apetalous Dicotyledons date as far back as the Trias, at the very bottom of the Secondary period, by which, were it a fact, a serious Evolutionary void would be filled. In the same manner he draws a perfectly imaginary picture of the submarine forests of primeval days, in which "we may suppose" all the forms of after vegetation to have begun their career as seaweeds.[309]
But in regard of his favourite doctrine of the bestial origin of man, he goes much further, and prints[310] an elaborate genealogy upon which Professor Huxley in reviewing him makes no adverse remark. In this he exhibits, as a simple matter of scientific fact, an "Ancestral Series of the human pedigree," which ninety-nine per cent, of his readers[{262}] will naturally suppose to be based upon palæontological evidence. This wonderful genealogy stands thus:
1. Monera. 2. Single-celled Primeval animals. 3. Many-celled Primeval animals. 4. Ciliated planulæ (Planæada). 5. Primeval Intestinal animals (Gastræada). 6. Gliding Worms (Turbellaria). 7. Soft-worms (Scolecida). 8. Sack worms (Himatega). 9. Acrania. 10. Monorrhina. 11. Primeval fish (Selachii). 12. Salamander fish (Dipneusta). 13. Gilled Amphibia (Sozobranchia). 14. Tailed Amphibia (Sozura). 15. Primeval Amniota (Protamnia). 16. Primary Mammals (Promammalia). 17. Marsupialia. 18. Semi-apes (Prosimiæ). 19. Tailed narrow-nosed Apes. 20. Tail-less narrow-nosed Apes (Men-like Apes). 21. Pithecanthropus (Speechless or Ape-like Man). 22. Talking Man.
The first thing to remark [says M. de Quatrefages][311] is that not one of the creatures exhibited in this pedigree has ever been seen, either living or fossil. Their existence is based entirely upon theory.[312] All species, existing or extinct, are said to have been preceded by ancestral forms, which have[{263}] disappeared leaving no vestige behind.... All the ancestral groups more or less ill represented in the actual organic world, do not suffice to fill up the gaps in his pedigree; from one stage to another there is sometimes too broad a gulf. Then Haeckel invents the types themselves, as well as the line of descent to which he assigns them [for example No. 7, The Scolecida, and No. 21, Pithecanthropus].