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The oldest of these creatures that lead to the horses is called Eohippus or beginning horse. This fellow had on the forefeet four large toes, each with a small hoof and fifth imperfect one, which answered to the thumb. The hind feet had gone further in the change, for they each had but three toes, each with hoofs, the middle-toed hoof larger and longer than the others.
Such a possibility would exactly account for the series of Eohippus, Hipparion, and horse, which we have already instanced; and still more so for the rise and disappearance of the great Mesozoic Saurians when their object was fulfilled. Deny guidance and type, and everything becomes confused.
The Zeuglodons from Eocene down to Pliocene, the Dolphins in the Pliocene, and the Ziphoids Catodontidae, and Balaenidae in the Pliocene, are all fully developed forms, with no intermediate species. Eohippus Lower Eocene of America; fore-feet have four toes and a rudimentary thumb or pollex. 2. Anchitherium Eocene and Lower Miocene; three toes, but 2 and 4 are diminutive. 4.
The events of the days of creation are recorded here, but they are days of such length that they are to be reckoned only in millions of years. The evolution of the horse, according to the best and latest research, from the eohippus of Eocene times a small mammal no larger than the fox to the proud and fleet creature that we prize to-day, occupied four or five millions of years.
But even such successive forms as the Eohippus, Mesohippus, Miohippus, and Pliohippus must not be arranged in a direct line as the pedigree of the horse. The family became most extensive in the Miocene, and we must regard the casual fossil specimens we have discovered as illustrations of the various phases in the development of the horse from the primitive Ungulate.
Probably many more species of animals have become extinct than have survived, but none of these could have been in the line of man's descent, else the human race would not have been here. If the Eocene progenitor of the horse, the little four-toed eohippus, had been cut off, would not the world have been horseless to-day?
Can we think of the first little horse of which we have any record, the eohippus of three or four millions of years ago, as evolving by accidental variations into the horse of our time, without presupposing an equine impulse to development? As well might we trust our ships to the winds and waves with the expectation that they will reach their several ports.
In the little eohippus was potentially the horse we know, as surely as the oak is potential in the acorn, or the bird potential in the egg, whatever element of mystery may enter into the problem. In fields where speed wins, the fleetest are the fittest. In fields where strength wins, the strongest are the fittest.
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