The Origin of Species Charles Darwin (great books to read txt) 📖

the scale of invertebrate animals, if judged by the most decisive of all trials⁠—the law of battle. Beside these inherent difficulties in deciding which forms are the most advanced in organisation, we ought not solely to compare the highest members of a class at any two periods⁠—though undoubtedly this is one and perhaps the most important element in striking a balance⁠—but we ought to compare all the members, high and low, at two periods. At an ancient epoch the highest and lowest molluscoidal animals, namely, cephalopods and brachiopods, swarmed in numbers; at the present time both groups are greatly reduced, while others, intermediate in organisation, have largely increased; consequently some naturalists maintain that molluscs were formerly more highly developed than at present; but a stronger case can be made out on the opposite side, by considering the vast reduction of brachiopods, and the fact that our existing cephalopods, though few in number, are more highly organised than their ancient representatives. We ought also to compare the relative proportional numbers, at any two periods, of the high and low classes throughout the world: if, for instance, at the present day fifty thousand kinds of vertebrate animals exist, and if we knew that at some former period only ten thousand kinds existed, we ought to look at this increase in number in the highest class, which implies a great displacement of lower forms, as a decided advance in the organisation of the world. We thus see how hopelessly difficult it is to compare with perfect fairness, under such extremely complex relations, the standard of organisation of the imperfectly-known faunas of successive periods.

We shall appreciate this difficulty more clearly by looking to certain existing faunas and floras. From the extraordinary manner in which European productions have recently spread over New Zealand, and have seized on places which must have been previously occupied by the indigenes, we must believe, that if all the animals and plants of Great Britain were set free in New Zealand, a multitude of British forms would in the course of time become thoroughly naturalized there, and would exterminate many of the natives. On the other hand, from the fact that hardly a single inhabitant of the southern hemisphere has become wild in any part of Europe, we may well doubt whether, if all the productions of New Zealand were set free in Great Britain, any considerable number would be enabled to seize on places now occupied by our native plants and animals. Under this point of view, the productions of Great Britain stand much higher in the scale than those of New Zealand. Yet the most skilful naturalist, from an examination of the species of the two countries, could not have foreseen this result.

Agassiz and several other highly competent judges insist that ancient animals resemble to a certain extent the embryos of recent animals belonging to the same classes; and that the geological succession of extinct forms is nearly parallel with the embryological development of existing forms. This view accords admirably well with our theory. In a future chapter I shall attempt to show that the adult differs from its embryo, owing to variations having supervened at a not early age, and having been inherited at a corresponding age. This process, whilst it leaves the embryo almost unaltered, continually adds, in the course of successive generations, more and more difference to the adult. Thus the embryo comes to be left as a sort of picture, preserved by nature, of the former and less modified condition of the species. This view may be true, and yet may never be capable of proof. Seeing, for instance, that the oldest known mammals, reptiles, and fishes strictly belong to their proper classes, though some of these old forms are in a slight degree less distinct from each other than are the typical members of the same groups at the present day, it would be vain to look for animals having the common embryological character of the Vertebrata, until beds rich in fossils are discovered far beneath the lowest Cambrian strata⁠—a discovery of which the chance is small.

On the Succession of the Same Types Within the Same Areas, During the Later Tertiary Periods

Mr. Clift many years ago showed that the fossil mammals from the Australian caves were closely allied to the living marsupials of that continent. In South America, a similar relationship is manifest, even to an uneducated eye, in the gigantic pieces of armour, like those of the armadillo, found in several parts of La Plata; and Professor Owen has shown in the most striking manner that most of the fossil mammals, buried there in such numbers, are related to South American types. This relationship is even more clearly seen in the wonderful collection of fossil bones made by MM. Lund and Clausen in the caves of Brazil. I was so much impressed with these facts that I strongly insisted, in 1839 and 1845, on this “law of the succession of types,”⁠—on “this wonderful relationship in the same continent between the dead and the living.” Professor Owen has subsequently extended the same generalisation to the mammals of the Old World. We see the same law in this author’s restorations of the extinct and gigantic birds of New Zealand. We see it also in the birds of the caves of Brazil. Mr. Woodward has shown that the same law holds good with seashells, but, from the wide distribution of most molluscs, it is not well displayed by them. Other cases could be added, as the relation between the extinct and living land-shells of Madeira; and between the extinct and living brackish water-shells of the Aralo-Caspian Sea.

Now, what does this remarkable law of the succession of the same types within the same areas mean? He would be a bold man who, after comparing the present climate of Australia and of parts of South America, under the same latitude, would attempt to account, on the one hand through dissimilar physical conditions, for the dissimilarity