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Among the corals, the palaeozoic 'Tabulata' are constructed on precisely the same type as the modern millepores; and if we turn to molluscs, the most competent malacologists fail to discover any generic distinction between the 'Craniae', 'Lingulae' and 'Discinae' of the silurian rocks and those which now live.
The 'Mollusca'. In what sense is the living 'Waldheimia' less embryonic, or more specialized; than the paleozoic 'Spirifer'; or the existing 'Rhynchonellae', 'Craniae', 'Discinae', 'Lingulae', than the Silurian species of the same genera?
Among the corals, the palaeozoic 'Tabulata' are constructed on precisely the same type as the modern millepores; and if we turn to molluscs, the most competent malacologists fail to discover any generic distinction between the 'Craniae', 'Lingulae' and 'Discinae' of the silurian rocks and those which now live.
Unmoved witnesses of the innumerable revolutions that have upheaved our planet, the Lingulae are to-day what they were at the remotest times of the paleozoic era. The truth is that adaptation explains the sinuosities of the movement of evolution, but not its general directions, still less the movement itself.
The 'Mollusca'. In what sense is the living 'Waldheimia' less embryonic, or more specialized; than the paleozoic 'Spirifer'; or the existing 'Rhynchonellae', 'Craniae', 'Discinae', 'Lingulae', than the Silurian species of the same genera?
And this impulse implies initiative and choice, constituting an effort which we are not authorised by the facts to pronounce fatalistic: "A simple glance at the fossil species shows us that life could have done without evolution, or could have evolved only within very restricted limits, had it chosen the far easier path open to it of becoming cramped in its primitive forms; certain Foraminifera have not varied since the silurian period; the Lingulae, looking unmoved upon the innumerable revolutions which have upheaved our planet, are today what they were in the most distant times of the palaeozoic era."
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