THE PRESENT ASPECT OF INQUIRIES AS TO THE INTRODUCTION OF GENERA AND SPECIES IN GEOLOGICAL TIME. BY J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F. R.S., PRINCIPAL OF MCGILL COLLEGE UNIVERSITY. From an (unpublished) Address before the Natural History Society of Montreal. HERE can be no doubt that the theory have myself endeavoured to apply this test of it which is advocated by Darwin, has Silurian flora of Canada, and have shown greatly extended its influence, especially that the succession of Devonian and Carbonamong young English and American natural- iferous plants does not seem explicable on ists, within the few past years. We now the theory of derivation. Still more recentconstantly see reference made to these theo- ly, in a memoir on the Post-pliocene deposits ries, as if they were established principles, of Canada, now in course of publication in applicable without question to the explana- the Canadian Naturalist, I have, by a close tion of observed facts, while classifications and detailed comparison of the numerous notoriously based on these views, and in species of shells found embedded in our themselves untrue to nature, have gained clays and gravels, with those living in the currency in popular articles and even in Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the coasts of text-books. In this way young people are Labrador and Greenland, shown that it is being trained to be evolutionists without be- impossible to suppose that any changes of ing aware of it, and will come to regard the nature of evolution were in progress; nature wholly through this medium. So but on the contrary, that all these species strong is this tendency, more especially in have remained the same, even in their variEngland, that there is reason to fear that etal forms, from the Post-pliocene period natural history will be prostituted to the until now. Thus the inference is, that these service of a shallow philosophy, and that our species must have been introduced in some old Baconian mode of viewing nature will be abrupt manner, and that their variations quite reversed, so that instead of studying have been within narrow limits and not profacts in order to arrive at general principles, gressive. This is the more remarkable, since we shall return to the medieval plan of great changes of level and of climate have ocsetting up dogmas based on authority only, curred, and many species have been obliged or on metaphysical considerations of the to change their geographical distribution, most flimsy character, and forcibly twisting but have not been forced to vary more nature into conformity with their require- widely than in the Post-pliocene period ments. Thus "advanced" views in science lend themselves to the destruction of science and to a return to semi-barbarism. In these circumstances the only resource of the true naturalist is an appeal to the careful study of groups of animals and plants in their succession in geological time. I itself. Facts of this kind will attract little attention in comparison with the bold and attractive speculations of men who can launch their opinions from the vantage ground of London journals; but their gradual accumulation must some day sweep away the fabric of evolution, and restore our English science with only one to four segments, others with to the domain of common sense and sound as many as fourteen to twenty-six, while a induction. Fortunately also, there are work- great many species have medium or interers in this field beyond the limits of the vening numbers. Now, in the early primorEnglish-speaking world. As an eminent | dial fauna, the prevalent Trilobites are at example, we may refer to Joachim Barrande, the extremes, some with very few segments, the illustrious palæontologist of Bohemia, and the greatest authority on the wonderful fauna of his own primordial rocks. In his recent memoir on those ancient and curious crustaceans, the Trilobites,* he deals a most damaging blow at the theory of evolution, showing conclusively that no such progressive development is reconcileable with the facts presented by the primordial fauna. The Trilobites are very well adapted to such an investigation. They constitute a well marked group of animals trenchantly separated from all others. They extend through the whole enormous length of the Palæo-ple of survival of the fittest, the species with zoic period, and are represented by numerous genera and species. They ceased altogether at an early period of the earth's geological history, so that their account with nature has been closed, and we are in a condition to sum it up and strike the balance of profit and loss. Barrande, in an elaborate essay of 282 pages, brings to bear on the history of these creatures his whole vast stores of information, in a manner most conclusive in its refutation of theories of gressive development. as Agnostus, others with very many, as Paradoxides. The genera with the medium segments are more characteristic of the later faunas. There is thus no progression. If the evolutionist holds that the few-jointed forms are embryonic, or more like to the young of the others, then, on his theory, they should have precedence, but they are contemporary with forms having the greatest number of joints, and Barrande shows that these last cannot be held to be less perfect than those with the medium numbers. Further, as Barrande well shows, on the princi pro It would be impossible here to give an adequate summary of his facts and reasoning A mere example must suffice. In the earlier part of the memoir, he takes up the inodification of the head, the thorax, and the pygidium or tail-piece of the Trilobites, in geological time, showing that numerous and remarkable as these modifications are, in structure, in form, and in ornamentation, no law of development can be traced in them. For example, in the number of segments or joints of the thorax, we find some Trilobites *Published in advance of the Supplement to Vol. 1st of the Silurian System of Bohemia. the medium number of joints are best fitted for the struggle of existence. But in that case the primordial Trilobites made a great mistake in passing at once from the few to the many segmented stage, or vice versa, and omitting the really profitable condition which lay between. In subsequent times they were thus obliged to undergo a retrogade evolution, in order to repair the error caused by the want of foresight, or precipitation of their earlier days. But like other cases of late repentance, theirs seems not to have quite repaired the evils incurred; for it was after they had fully attained the golden mean that they failed in the struggle, and finally became extinct. "Thus the infallibility which these theories attribute to all the acts of matter organizing itself, is gravely compromised," and this attribute would appear not to reside in the trilobed tail, any more than, according to some, in the triple crown. In the same manner the palæontologist of Bohemia passes in review all the parts of the Trilobites, the succession of their species and genera in time, the parallel between. them and the Cephalopods, and the relation of all this to the primordial fauna gen so complete, and so marked, that it almost seems as if they had been contrived on purpose to contradict all that these theories teach of the first appearance and primitive evolution of the forms of animal life.” erally. Everywhere he meets with the same This testimony is the more valuable, inasmuch as the annulose animals generally, and the Trilobites in particular, have recently been a favourite field for the speculations of our English evolutionists. The usual argumentum ad ignorantiam deduced from the imperfection of the geological record, will not avail against the facts cited by Barrande, unless it could be proved that we know the Trilobites only in the last stages of their decadence, and that they existed as long before the Primordial, as that is before the Permian. Even this supposition, extravagant as it appears, would by no means remove all THE INDIAN'S GRAVE. BY DODISHOT. IS only a little mound in the midst of the deep, dark grove, as Where the green leaves mournfully rustle and shake as they drearily wave With the breath of each passing breeze, as if weeping for one that they love; But 'tis only the sod that covers a warrior Indian's grave And the streamlet ripples along as softly as ever it did, And the great tall pines look down on the clear lucid waters that lave, With wavelets so tenderly soft, the dark, gloomy grove where is hid And the elk and the antelope fleet come down to the water to drink, But the Chippewa brave sleeps on-and no more his war-cry is heard; ALFREDUS REX FUNDATOR. BY GOLDWIN SMITH. A FEW weeks ago an Oxford College pure Gothic which marks the Neo-catholic celebrated the thousandth anniver- reaction in Oxford, and which will perhaps sary of its foundation by King Alfred. hereafter be derided as we deride the classic mania of the last century, has led Mr. Gilbert Scott to erect a pure Gothic library, which moreover has nothing in its form to bespeak its purpose, but closely resembles a chapel. Over the gateway of the larger quadrangle is a statue, in Roman costume, of James II., one of the few memorials of the ejected tyrant, who in his course of reaction visited the college and had two rooms on the east side of the quadrangle fitted up for the performance of mass. The College which claims this honour is commonly called University College, though its legal name is Magna Aula Universitatis. The name "University College" causes much perplexity to visitors, who are with difficulty taught by the friend who is lionizing them to distinguish it from the University. But the University of Oxford is a federation of colleges, of which University College is one, resembling in all respects the rest of the sisterhood, being, like them, under the federal authority of the University, and retaining only the same measure of college right; conducting the domestic instruction and discipline of its students through its own officers, but sending them to the lecture rooms of the University Professors for the higher teaching, and to the University examination rooms to be examined for their degrees. The college is an ample and venerable pile, with two towered gateways, each opening into a quadrangle, its front stretching along the High Street, on the side opposite to St. Mary's Church. The darkness of the stone seems to speak of immemorial antiquity; but the style, which is the later Gothic so characteristic of Oxford, and so symbolical of its history, shows that the buildings really belong to the time of the Stuarts. Obadiah Walker, the master of the college, had turned Papist, and became one of the organs of the reaction, in the overthrow of which he was involved, the fall of his master and the ruin of his party being announced to him by the boys singing at his window-" Ave Maria, old Obadiah.” In the same quadrangle are the chambers of Shelley, and the room to which he was summoned by the assembled college authorities to receive, with his friend Hogg, sentence of expulsion for having circulated an atheistical treatise. In the ante-chapel is the florid monument of Sir William Jones. But the modern divinities of the college are the two great legal brothers, Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, whose colossal statues fraternally united are conspicuous in the library, whose portraits hang side by side in the hall, whose medallion busts greet you at the entrance to the common room. Pass by these medallions, however, into the common room itself, with its panelled walls, red curtains, polished mahogany table, and generally cozy aspect, whither after dinner in hall the fellows of the college retire to sip their wine and taste such social happiness as the rule of celibacy permits. Over that ample fireplace, round the blaze of which the circle is drawn in the winter evenings, stands the marble bust, carved by no mean hand, of an ancient king, and underneath it are the words Alfredus Rex Fundator. Alas! both traditions—the tradition that Alfred founded the University of Oxford, and the tradition that he founded University College-are devoid of historical foundation. Universities did not exist in Alfred's days. They were developed centuries later out of the monastery schools. When Queen Elizabeth was on a visit to Cambridge a scholar delivered before her an oration, in which he exalted the antiquity of his own university at the expense of that of the University of Oxford. The University of Oxford was roused to arms. In that uncritical age any antiquarian weapon which the fury of academical patriotism could supply was eagerly grasped; and the reputation of the great antiquary Camden is somewhat compromised with regard to an interpolation in Asser's Life of Alfred, which formed the chief documentary support of the Oxford case. The historic existence of both the English universities begins with the reign of the scholar king, and the restorer of order and prosperity after the ravages of the conquest and the tyranny of Rufus-Henry I. In that reign the Abbot of Croyland, to gain money for the rebuilding of his abbey, set up a school where we are told Priscan's grammar, Aristotle's logic, with the commentaries of Porphyry and Averroes, and Cicero and Quintilian as masters of rhetoric, were taught after the manner of the school of Orleans. In the following reign a foreign professor, Vacarius, roused the jealousy of the English monarchy and baronage by teaching Roman law in the schools of Oxford. The thirteenth century, that marvellous and romantic age of medieval religion and character, medieval art, medieval philosophy, was also the palmy age of the universities. Then Oxford gloried in Grosteste, at once paragon and patron of learning, church reformer and champion of the national church against Roman aggression; in his learned and pious friend Adam de Marisco; and in Roger Bacon, the pioneer and martyr of physical science. Then, with Paris, she was the great organ of that school philosophy, wonderful in its subtlety as well as in its aridity, which, though it bore no fruit itself, trained the mind of Europe to more fruitful studies, the original produce of medieval Christendom, though taking its forms of thought from the deified Stagyrite, and clothing itself in the Latin language, which, however, was so much altered and debased from the classical language as to become, in fact, a classical and literary vernacular of the middle age. Then her schools, her church porches, her very street corners, every spot where a professor could gather an audience, were thronged with the aspiring youth who had come up, many of them begging their way out of the dark prison-house of feudalism, to what was then, in the absence of printing, the sole centre of intellectual light. Then Oxford, which in later times became, from the clerical character of the headships and fellowships, the great organ of reaction, was the great organ of progress, produced the political songs which embodied with wonderful force the principles of free government, and sent her students to fight under the banner of the university in the army of Simon de Montfort. It was in the thirteenth century that University College was really founded. The founder was William of Durham, an English ecclesiastic who had studied in the Univer sity of Paris; for the universities were then, like the church, common to all the natives of Latin Christendom, then forming, as it were, an ecclesiastical and literary federation which, afterwards broken up by the Refor mation, is now in course of reconstruction through uniting influences of a new kind. |