been borrowed; and, thirdly, that here again none of the languages in which these verbal forms occur possess the elements of which they are composed."

All these languages resemble each other so closely that they point to some more ancient language which was to them what Latin was to the six Roman languages; and in the same way we are justified in supposing that all the classes of the vertebrate animals point to the existence of some elder type, now extinct, from which they were all developed.

I have thus stated what are the two hypotheses on this question. There is only one more preliminary which it is needful to notice here, and that is, to caution the reader against the tendency, unhappily too common, of supposing that an adversary holds opinions which are transparently absurd. When we hear a hypothesis which is either novel or unacceptable to us, we are apt to draw some very ridiculous conclusion from it, and to assume that this conclusion is seriously held by its upholders. Thus the zoologists who maintain the variability of species are sometimes asked if they believe a goose was developed out of an oyster, or a rhinoceros from a mouse? the questioner apparently having no misgiving as to the candor of his ridicule. There are three modes of combating a doctrine. The first is to point out its strongest positions, and then show them to be erroneous or incomplete; but this plan is generally difficult, and sometimes impossi

ble; it is not, therefore, much in vogue. The second is to render the doctrine ridiculous by pretending that it includes certain extravagant propositions of which it is entirely innocent. The third is to render the doctrine odious by forcing on it certain conclusions which it would repudiate, but which are declared to be "the inevitable consequences" of such a doctrine. Now it is undoubtedly true that men frequently maintain very absurd opinions; but it is neither candid nor wise to assume that men who otherwise are certainly not fools, hold opinions the absurdity of which is transparent.

Let us not, therefore, tax the followers of Lamarck, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, or Mr. Darwin with absurdities they have not advocated, but rather endeavor to see what solid argument they have for the basis of their hypothesis.

CHAPTER V.

Talking in Beetles.-Identity of Egyptian Animals with those now existing: Does this prove Fixity of Species ?-Examination of the celebrated Argument of Species not having altered in four thousand Years.-Impossibility of distinguishing Species from Varieties. The Affinities of Animals.-New Facts proving the Fertility of Hybrids.--The Hare and the Rabbit contrasted.-Doubts respecting the Development Hypothesis.-On Hypothesis in Natural History.-Pliny, and his Notion on the Formation of Pearls.-Are Pearls owing to a Disease of the Oyster?— Formation of the Shell; Origin of Pearls.-How the Chinese manufacture Pearls.

A WITTY friend of mine expressed her sense of the remoteness of the ancient Egyptians, and her difficulty in sympathizing with them, by declaring that "they talked in beetles, you know." She referred, of course, to the hieroglyphics in which that curious people now speak to us from ancient tombs. Whether these swarthy sages were eloquent and wise, or obscure and otherwise, in their beetle-speech, it is certain that entomologists of our day recognize their beetles as belonging to the same species that are now gathered into collections. Such as the Egyptians knew them, such we know them now. Nay, the sacred cats found in those ancient tombs are cats of the same kind as our own familiar mousers; they purred before Pharaoh as they purr

on our hearth-rugs; and the descendants of the very dogs which irreligiously worried those cats are to this day worrying the descendants of those sacred cats. The grains of wheat which the savans found in the tombs were planted in the soil of France, and grew into waving corn in no respect distinguishable from the corn grown from the grain of the previous year.

Have these familiar facts any important significance? Are we entitled to draw any conclusion from the testimony of paintings and sculptures, at least four thousand years old, which show that several of our well-known species of animals, and several of the well-marked races of men, existed then, and have not changed since then? Nimrod hunted with dogs and horses, which would be claimed as ancestors by the dogs and horses at Melton Mowbray. The negroes who attended Semiramis and Rhamses are in every respect similar to the negroes now toiling amid the sugar-canes of Alabama. If, during four thousand years, species and races have not changed, why should we suppose that they ever will change? Why should we not take our stand on that testimony, and assert that species are unchangeable?

Such has been the argument of Cuvier and his followers; an argument on which they have laid great stress, and which they have further strengthened by a challenge to adversaries to produce one single case where a transmutation of species has

taken place: "Here we show you evidence that species has persisted unaltered during four thousand years, and you can not show us a single case of species having changed-you can not show us one case of a wolf becoming a dog, an ass becoming a horse, a hare becoming a rabbit. Yet you must admit that if there were any inherent tendency to change, four thousand years is a long enough period for that tendency to display itself in; and we ought to see a very marked difference between the species which lived under Semiramis and those which are living under Victoria. Instead of this, we see that there has been no change: the dog has remained a dog, and the horse has remained a horse; every species retains its well-marked characters."

No one will say that I have not done justice to this argument. I have stated it as clearly and forcibly as possible, not with any design to captivate your assent, but to make the answer complete. This argument is the cheval de bataille of the Cuvier school; but, like many other argumentative warhorses, it proves, on close inspection, to be spavined and broken-winded. The first criticism we must pass on it is that it implies the existence of species as a thing which can be spoken of as fixed or variable; whereas, as we saw in the last chapter, species is an abstraction, like whiteness or strength. No one supposes that there exists any whiteness apart from white things, or strength apart from strong things;