Theories of Creation and the Universe [pp. 177-194]

THE ANIMALS AND PLANTS.
To sustain this strange theory, directly opposed as it is to the
Mosaic cosmogony, and to the best interests and dearest prospects
of mall, something more than loose conjectures and mere suppositions must be introduced. Facts, and facts alone, are sufficient to
disturb a faith inspired by reason and revelation, and sanctioned by
the experience of past time.'I'he speculations of the "Vestiges"
depend upon an unbroken chain of phenomena, and unless it is established the theory must fall. If we can show vegetables and
animals of a higher order prior, or, according to the "Vestiges," below those of an inferior character, the want of connection in the
chain of evidence vill appear, and the probability of the truth of the
theory be proportionally weakened. "In pursuing," our author
observes, "the progress of the development-t of both plants and animals upon the globe, we have seen an advance in both cases, along
the line leading to the higher forms of organization. Aimong plants
we have first sea-wveed, afterward land plants, and among these the
simpler (cellular and cryptogamic) before the more complex. In
the department of zoology we see zoophytes, radiata, mollusca and
articulata, existing for ages before there were any higher formns.
'['iie first step forward gives fishes, the humblest class of the vertebrata; and, moreover, tile earliest fishes partake of the character of
the next lowest sub-kingdom —the articulata. Afterward come land
animals, of which the first are reptiles, universally allowed to be the
type next in advance from fishes, and to be connected with these by
the links of an insensible gradation. From reptiles we advance to
birds, and thence to mammalia, which are commenced by marsupialia,
acknowledgedly low forms in their class." This is the conclusion
to which our author arrives, after viewing the fossils of the (liftlerent
strata in the earth's crust. But he is not sustained by the experience of distinguished men who have devoted their lives to the study
of geology. Zoophytes, polyparia, crenoid(la, and other animals of a
kindred character, were the only ones our author could find in the
"Grawacke" system, and these, hlie says, "are found in the earliest
of earthl's sepulchres." But it appears, from the authority of Sir H.
de la Beche, that bones and teeth of fish have been found in that system, proving that a comparatively high order of animals were among
the earliest inhabitants of the world. And the testimony of this distinguished geologist is confirmed by his still more distinguished successor, Mr. Lvell, who sayvs, "'vertebrated animals, true fishes, are
found among the earliest types of organism."
In the next, or "Silurian system," the same species are continued,
to which, according to the "Vestiges," fishes of a very minute size
are added, but of an order of mean organization. The records of
geology contrad(ict this statement, by establishing the existence of
fish of the highest organization; the evidence of which may be found
even below the strata in which our author places the first and meanest order of vertebrated animals, and out of the genera of an "obscure character," which are overlooked by the "Vestiges" to favor
the theory of development. Professor Agazzis has found several
new species, two of them of the very highest type. In the next era
of the world's history, the "Vestiges" contradicts the learned Agazzis,
whose grand divisions, with perhaps the single exception of the
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