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Updated: June 5, 2025
In 1862 he admitted candidly that the paleontological record as then known, so far as it bears on the doctrine of progressive development, negatives that doctrine.
Paleontology, in spite of the insufficiency of its evidence, invites us to believe it has; for, where it makes out the order of succession of species with any precision, this order is just what considerations drawn from embryogeny and comparative anatomy would lead any one to suppose, and each new paleontological discovery brings transformism a new confirmation.
Had we space, many more such causes of blanks in our paleontological records might be added. But it is needless here to enumerate them. They are admirably explained and illustrated in Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology. Now, if these minor changes of the Earth's surface produce minor breaks in the series of fossilized remains; must not great changes produce great breaks?
The numerous fossils that we have from the first two geological sections, the Laurentian and Cambrian periods, belong exclusively to aquatic plants and animals. From this paleontological fact, in conjunction with important geological and biological indications, we may infer with some confidence that there were no terrestrial animals at that time.
The relative size of the orbits and eyes. The size of the mouth and lips. The significance of these, as of the more important structural characters of man and the lower animals, must be considered from two standpoints, the paleontological and the embryological.
His "Being a Boy" is a delightful and faithful record of the existence of a genuine New England boy, which will remain to future generations as a paleontological record when the race of them is extinct, if indeed it be not so already. Returning to Schenectady, I found that the family had begun to discuss the future of my career, which had arrived at the point of divergences.
Nothing in his paleontological studies ever interested Agassiz more than this curious fauna of the Old Red, so strange in its combinations that even well-informed naturalists had attributed its fossil remains to various classes of the animal kingdom in turn, and, indeed, long remained in doubt as to their true nature.
On this unity of mineral character it is, that this Scottish formation is concluded to be contemporaneous with the lowest formations in Wales; for the scanty paleontological evidence suffices for neither proof nor disproof. Now, had there been a continuity of like strata in like order between Wales and Scotland, there might have been little to criticize in this conclusion.
I refused the former point blank, and accepted the latter only provisionally, telling Sir Henry that I did not care for fossils, and that I should give up Natural History as soon as I could get a physiological post. But I held the office for thirty-one years, and a large part of my work has been paleontological.
On the other hand, the Uniformitarians, who not only reject the hypothesis of development, but deny that the modern forms of life are higher than the ancient ones, reply that the paleontological evidence is at present very incomplete; that though we have not yet found remains of highly-organized creatures in strata of the greatest antiquity, we must not assume that no such creatures existed when those strata were deposited; and that, probably, search will eventually disclose them.
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